


All The Magic In His Hands

by starkraving



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Battle Magnus Bane, Camille Belcourt Being An Asshole, Chronic Pain, Depression, Disability, Everyone Love Magnus Bane, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Magnus Bane, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magnus Bane-centric, Mortal Magnus Bane, Non-Consensual Kissing, Obsessive Behavior, Protective Alec Lightwood, Witchcraft, immortals yelling at magnus, magic loss as an injury, motherfucker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-13 01:34:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14739596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkraving/pseuds/starkraving
Summary: Magnus Bane is mortal. Well. That will just not motherfucking do. AKA: Catarina Loss is terrifying when she's terrified. Camille tries to turn Magnus into a vampire. Raphael is just really goddamn angry. And Alec Lightwood is just trying to chase down a man that won't stay down even when his world is burning. Magnus intends to rescue himself.  A story about coping with loss and the peculiarities of love, magic, and community.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yo there is a fight scene in this story that has some extremely non-con vibes. Stay safe out there!

Catarina handles it better than he imagined she would.

She waits until they’re alone – sequestering Jace with a very unconscious Alec in the guest bedroom before taking Magnus aside to his study and locking the door behind her. Then she stands there for a moment, silently, staring at the place where the seam of the door meets the jamb, long enough for Magnus to make a brief study of her: jeans, boots, a jacket, her hair braided against her head. Battle attire. She came ready for war when he called her to that alley.

“I can’t feel you,” she says, so softly he almost misses it.

“No. You won’t be able to.”

“You’re cursed then,” Cat says determinedly. “Your magic is locked. We need to break –”

“No,” Magnus cuts in. “I’m afraid not.” He swallows. “Not this time.”

Catarina says nothing for a moment, just stares at the door and her hand against the wood. Then she turns, takes the two steps it takes to reach him and slaps Magnus so hard the crack is a gunshot and his head snaps to the side. He staggers, a dark sun flaring then winking out in the orb of his left eye and leaving nothing but an oily after impression inside his skull.

Before he can react, she seizes a fistful of his jacket collar and makes this… wounded _animal_ sound, somewhere between a scream and a sob. Then she yanks him into her chest, hooking her arms around his neck, her fingers closing in his hair and even as she does this, he feels all the magic in her soul unwind itself around him, opening and closing around his body, engulfing him completely. Like falling into a bath and being held under.

Cat buries her face in his neck and he feels her magic as weightlessness, like the eddies of the ocean around him, lifting his clothes, soaking through his shirt and jeans, running over his skin and washing every inch of him in healing, cleansing, scrying magic. The desperation of her enchantments overwhelm him. It tastes like mint and salt water in his mouth, smells like the air after rainfall, is humid and stifling all around him, on his tongue and in his lungs and all over him in a way that would be terrifying if it was anyone but Catarina.

He shudders but lets her do it.

He lets her scour his soul for something she can fix. The injury, the cut artery, the broken mechanism inside him that she can reach in and repair but there is nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing…

“No.” Her voice is small and frantic against his neck. “No, no, no.”

Magnus cradles her head, fitting his hand to the back of her skull, holding her tight with his other arm.

“It’s okay,” he says quietly. “Cat, it’s okay.”

“Not you,” she gasps. “You always come back to me. You always –”

“I’m not going to die like that. Catarina, listen to me. I’m okay. I have a whole life. Eighty years at least. Okay? I was contracted a whole life. Shh, please, don’t cry.” He can feel his own eyes stinging, his own throat closing up. “You’re going to make me cry. C’mon, love.”

“Tell me you didn’t give your magic to your father.” She’s whispering, ragged. “This wasn’t what I meant. Oh god, this wasn’t want I meant when I said to go to him. You can’t do this. Please…”

“It’s already done.”

She sobs like he’s taking an X-Acto knife to her belly and wrenching it. Her fingers close so tight in his hair it hurts, her nails digging into his shoulder. Her tears are ice cold against his skin while her magic is warm as bathwater on the rest of him, wrapping him so completely he feels like he’s climbed inside her chest, like she pulled him into the beating core of herself, like that will be enough protection to stave off the inevitable consequence of his diagnosis.

“Cat, I’m so sorry, but I need you to –”

The office door clicks and opens.

“Magnus?” The door opens halfway. “Are you okay?”

A disheveled blonde head appears in the gap. Jace Herondale – still sweaty, haggard, eyes blood-shot – stops halfway through the motion of stepping inside, freezing as he registers what he’s walked in on. The room is awash with magic, drowning in magic, every corner of every room soaked with enchantment and bleeding with spells so dense they swim through the air like a thousand of complex microbial lifeforms. A micro-biome seething with two warlocks at the center. The aqua glow of Cat’s magic illuminates his retinas in ghost light.

He exhales once and backs away.

“ _You_ ,” Catarina says, gently separating herself from Magnus.

“Cat,” Magnus says, urgent. “Catarina, _don’t_ –”

Cat flicks one finger the door rips out of Jace’s fingers. He lunges back but she jerks her head and Jace is yanked forward, his boots skidding on the hardwood, his arms wrenched in front of his body and pinned together by a bone-crushing kinetic spell. He bucks back, but the spell drags him into the room until Cat’s hand closes in the collar of his jacket and Jace stands face to face with a burning woman-shaped statue – her skin ignited by infernal bio-luminance, like algae beneath moonlight. Her braids unravel and her hair is the color of an aurora.

 “This is your fault,” she says.

Her eyes are blue suns, her throat full of liquid flame.

And then every single spell milling in the air shivers, stops, then screams red, passive magic converting violently into one-thousand shuddering hexes… then all of them swarm Jace like wasps. He tries to yell, but a dozen of buzzing cantrips race down this throat, filling his mouth, choking him with crackling blue static. He claws at his windpipe, his eyes flaring blue and gold, one hand clutching at Catarina’s wrist, but even her skin burns nitrogenous. His fingers blister, split, and bleed.

“Cat! No!” Magnus grabs her arm, just above the elbow. “He’s a _child_! He didn’t do this!”

The spell shatters. The hexes whither, dropping like flies. The light is instantly gone, so suddenly it plunges the room in a false darkness and for a moment Cat stands there, gripping Jace by the throat, her eyes wide. Dark and horrified. She releases him. Jace hits the floor on his forearms and knees, his forehead falling against his arms. He vomits, coughing blood and bile. Sucks a wet, ragged breath.

Magnus can think of one person at a time in this moment, so he moves to gather Cat’s head in his hands, pulls her close. He presses his brow to hers, feels her magic pull in again and coil around him, her hands fitting likewise to his jaw and cradling his head in her hands.

She’s crying. “You can’t leave me too.”

“I’m not going to. We’ll figure something out, Catarina. We have time.”

“Swear to me.”

“I swear it to you.”

She kisses him, once, on the mouth. He lets her. 

When she stops, he asks, “What was that?”

“True love’s kiss,” she whispers. “Sometimes, it doesn’t matter what kind of love.”

Then she lets him go and leaves the room. She does not stop to help Jace.

The shadowhunter, for his part, stays where he is, head bowed, hair hanging unattractively in his eyes, even when Magnus moves toward him. There’s blood dripping freely from his chin, like someone pulled a tooth straight out of his jaw. His hands lay open on his knees, burnt and cracked opened, blood filling the split grooves in his palms. He seems catatonic, so Magnus kneels carefully beside him and lays a hand just below the nape of his neck.

“Jace. Can you hear me?”

“ _M’sorry_.” Jace’s mouth is still a wreck of gore, his teeth blood-slick. Even more blood comes up with every syllable. ‘M’so sorry, Magnus.”

“C’mon. I have healing potions. We shouldn’t leave hex wounds to–”

“I’m getting you killed, aren’t I?”

Magnus freezes. His hand tightens on the back of Jace’s neck. Jace heaves a sob through his bloody teeth, doubling over at the waist and just… coming apart completely. Ugly breath racking his lungs so hard he can’t seem to come out of it. Jace Herondale is one of the most dangerous shadowhunters in the Clave, a cold-blooded hunter – Magnus doesn’t know what to do with this version of him. He’s got no idea.

“You didn’t do this,” Magnus murmurs because that, at least, is true.

“But it’s my fault.” Jace weeps. “Clary is _dead_. Alec won’t wake up. Simon… Simon just _ran_. I couldn’t stop him.”

“Jace, calm down.”

“And I’ve killed the only warlock that would help us,” Jace says, looking at him, almost in awe, a terrible horrified awe. “Tell me what to do, Magnus. You always know… what to –”

“Jace. You’re in shock. Stand up.”

“ _Please_!”

“ _Jace_ ,” Magnus says again, with calm he doesn’t feel. “Stop. Just… _stand up_.”

Magnus takes the boy’s elbow and pulls his arm over the back of his neck, pinning his wrist against his collarbone. He stands up, pulling Jace off the floor. His smells like sulfur, blood and black magic, a mix of rotten fruit and some… strange almost animal smell. Like he’s been sleeping on the floor with dogs or something. It’s in his hair, his clothes. Jace is shaking, twitching uncontrollably. There are bruises on his throat like human teeth leave behind. His pupils are blown.

“Just walk,” Magnus says softly.

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop.”

“Thank you,” Jace cries suddenly, almost delirious. He’s starting to lose consciousness, his head falling against Magnus’ shoulder. “I don’t – I can’t stand thinking what would’ve… If you hadn’t been there...”

Magnus feels nothing.

He should. He doesn’t.

“It’s okay,” he says, because it’s the thing to say. “C’mon.”

For some reason, Magnus thinks about fighting Lorenzo in that ally behind Jade Wolf. About two things: the fact none of this would be happening if the motherfucker had just let him us the synthesis spell and the fact he was right. It’s looped in his brain like a tape stuck on a track: _You let your heart dictate your actions. It will be your downfall. You let your heart dictate your actions. It will be your downfall. Your downfall. Your downfall. You’re done, Bane. You’re done._

 

* * *

 

Magnus wakes at 3AM, confused, and like every day for the past five days he does these four things:

1: Roll over, pawing sleepily for Alexander, before realizing he’s not there.

2: Reach for his magic, the way you rub your eyes in the morning to wake up properly and realize that’s not there either.

3: Remember how many people are dead despite the fact he traded his magic to save lives.

4: Resist the animal panic that overcomes him by lying very still with his eyes closed.

It’s not the best morning routine, admittedly.

His magic, the absence of his magic, is physical in a way Magnus hadn’t fathomed.

As it turns out, his father lied to him. (Shocker.) Losing his magic was only ‘painless’ in the first five seconds of it happening. Then the five seconds were over and a screaming chasm opened up inside him and Magnus started to ache, and ache, and _ache._ Now? The pain is constant and chronic. Almost debilitating. The first forty-eight hours got so bad, Catarina had to sedate him.

He’s better now, but not by much.

He’s so _tired_. Constantly from doing nothing. From just existing. Like existing with a constant gaping hole blown in his guts would be exhausting, but there is no hole he’s still expected to just get up and keep moving. He hasn’t eaten in the last twelve hours because getting up and getting a goddamn sandwich seems such monumental impossible effort. Being conscious is already exhausting. He wants to be asleep again instantly and he knows, he knows, he _knows_ he can’t keep doing this.

It’s not that one task his more difficult than the other.

It’s that all tasks are painful.

It’s simply that the world viewed through a prism of magic is so much… brighter, louder, and warmer. The world tasted, smelled, and felt so much more intensely when there was magic humming underneath it all. He reaches for it. Over and over and over. No matter how immediately before he reached and failed to find it. He keeps reaching for his magic and the exhaustion of the constant, brutal empty response is starting to drive him insane.

Or maybe it’s the quiet.

Because there is literally nothing he can _do_.

He drove Cat away after the first four days because he couldn’t stand the way she kept trying to problem solve when all he wanted to do was be miserable and sick. Alec’s been moved to the Institute where they can hire functional warlocks to heal him and bar disgraced former High Warlocks from the premise. Maryse took Jace to one of Magnus’ safehouses where she and Izzy try, with limited success, to calm the nightmarish episodes that take him in fits of screaming and hallucination.

Luke is under police investigation.

Simon is missing.

Clary is…

Biscuit is dead.

Magnus lies back down and stares at the ceiling.

She’s dead. She was blown apart on the roof of a building trying to stop the Queen of Hell from raising a beast. Meanwhile, he was standing in an alley twenty stories down, watching the fireball that incinerated an eighteen-year-old girl he’s known since childhood. No one is intact. None of them. New York is safe, but he’s not utilitarian enough to take comfort in that while he thinks about picking Clary up at the tender age of five and swinging her around while Jocelyn, like always, tried to recruit him to some Clave business.

So they’re both dead. Both Fairchilds. Mother and daughter.

Magnus lets that sit on his chest until it compresses his lungs. He lets it unfurl through him like a deadly vine, taking root in his belly and spreading vile threads through his extremities, possessing and winding through him, bending his spine and curling his hands into knots.

There’s no one in the loft to hear him.

Eh. What the hell?

Magnus opens his mouth and just _screams_ , emptying his lungs until they ache, until his fingers curl, and his body doubles up with the force of his yell, and in the aftermath he lays gasping in the unmade wreck of his bed. He’s been here for three days straight. He closes his eyes and breathes slowly, letting the sweat cool on his brow, his bare chest, letting everything settle back down on top of him like a weighted blanket.

Magnus is starting to lose it.

It’s only been a week.

“Fuck.” The word breaks on his tongue. “ _Fuck_.”

He opens his eyes.

Camille Belcourt is standing at the foot of his bed.

Magnus stares.

She does not, like a whiskey-fueled hallucination, disappear. When he doesn’t move, just lies there not breathing, she tilts her beautiful head and _smiles_.

Magnus lunges for the nightstand, grabbing the drawer where he keeps three self-defense batteries. He barely gets his hand around the handle before she hits him like a freight train, body checking the warlock into the headboard so hard his skull dents the drywall. Magnus immediately kicks off the wall, diving off the side of the bed where he hits the floor rolling and comes up sprinting for the door. But Camille’s had one thousand years to move faster than a depowered warlock.

Particularly one she knows in a fight.  

She flicker-steps instantly across the room, snatching his arm at the bicep, wrenching him back so hard his shoulder threatens to dislocate at the speeds their moving, but Magnus is ready for the sudden reversal. He pivots into it, twists, and slams his elbow straight into her jaw, snapping her pretty head back. He immediately slams the heel of his free hand straight into the underside of her jaw once, twice, feels something crack and –

She must lose her temper then, because she just screams and torques at the waist, hurling him across the room with full, enraged, vampire strength.

Magnus hits the bedroom wall and the accent paneling craters. He’s on the floor before the stars clear from his eyes. He doesn’t get a chance to get back to his feet because Camille soccer kicks him in the ribs, cracking at least two of them on the toe of her designer boots. But Magnus knows her and sure as the sun, she tries to kick him again, but in the face this time. He jerks away, grabs her ankle and yanks her leg out from under her.

She yells, hits the floor on her perfect ass, and Magnus lunges up toward the door again, but she’s instantly on him, grabbing, and judo-throwing him over her shoulder straight into the mattress with such force the frame splinters and Magnus’ fractured ribs flare white-hot and – and that’s it. Then she’s on top of him, steel-boned fingers closed around his wrists so tight the ligaments in his arms scream. She takes the mount, straddling him, her knees digging into his ribs, pinning his wrists into the blankets over his head.

Magnus has the breath then to yell. “No!”

“Stop, fighting me! Just hold still.”

“Don’t you dare! Don’t you fucking dare –!”

She buries her fangs in his throat.

“Ah! _God_! Camille! Stop it!”

She does not stop. It hurts, then it doesn’t. Then it feels great.

“No!” He thrashes. She immediately bites him again, lower on his throat. There’s no pain at all this time, but a fresh dose of venom hits his racing blood-stream like a Black Mamba strike. His extremities lock up, then go numb, the poison sliding lovely heroine-warm fingers through his brain, until he’s gasping, slurring, “No. No, Camille…Camille stop…”

She pulls her head back, blood smeared like lipstick across her jaw.

“It’s okay,” say says, gently. “I’ll fix this, darling.”

“Stop.” He can barely see straight. His heart’s hammering, weak in his chest. “Wait. Don’t –”

She gathers his head in her hands. She kisses him. He tastes his own blood. He immediately tries to spit it out, but she holds him down, forces her tongue between his lips until the venom takes hold of him. Then he can’t do anything but lay slack, paralyzed as she licks his mouth open, her lower lip is neatly slit open, smearing warm, copper into his mouth until his lips and jaw are streaked red. She leans back then, to admire her handiwork.

“This is a good look,” Camille murmurs. “I’ve always told you.” She slides her fingers through his hair. “I heard what happened. I wouldn’t leave you like that. Okay? I’ve got you, love. I’ll fix this.”

“I won’t come back,” Magnus manages, forcing himself not to pass out. “Listen to me. Listen. Look at my eyes. I’m still…”

“It’ll work.”

“ _You can’t turn a warlock._ ”

“You’re mortal now.” She pushes his hair off his forehead, hushing, “It will work.”

“You’ll kill me. For real. Camille, please –” He lifts a hand, hesitates, then touches her face, sliding his fingers into the long silky dark of her hair. His hand shakes, palsied with venom and blood loss but when he does it, Camille’s eyes soften. She turns her cheek into his palm and he tries again, slowly. “If you try to turn me, I will die and I will not come back. Do you understand?”

“It’ll be okay,” she says. She takes his hand, kisses his wrist. “I’m going to save you.”

“Don’t. _Don’t–_ ”

“It’ll be over so fast.” She pushes his hand back into the mattress, so gently, so carefully. “I promise.”

“If you love me… if you…” _If you love me, don’t kill me. Jesus Christ._

She covers his mouth. Ignores the fact his eyes are welling over. She forces his chin up and to the side, baring his neck. Her fangs sink into his neck again and it’s so fucking good, he hears himself moan, feels himself kind of relax into it, his breath quickening, eyes fluttering as Camille starts to alternate kissing and sucking and gently, gently, dragging him toward a painless death. The horrifying part: when he stops wanting her to stop and his entire existence is nothing but the heat and slide of her lips against his neck and every slow molten release of venom.

He can barely breathe now, his eyes rolling back in his skull. He’s fading. He’s so _afraid_ to die. He’s so afraid it’s agonizing enough to penetrate even the endless chemical pleasure of the venom. He’s so fucking terrified, he can’t stand it. Camille peels her fingers from his lips, lets him breathe, runs her fingertips over his mouth.

“Camille.”

She drags her tongue over skin, warm, soft, endlessly gentle.

“Please…” He’s slipping. “I’m _scared_.”

Camille’s head snaps up. She stares at him, wide-eyed, his blood on her lips, looking so familiar in her shock that he forgets, for just a second, what she is and what she’s doing. It’s the last thing he sees before the lights wink out in his head and everything goes horribly black.

 

* * *

 

He wakes up face down in his own bed.

His neck, ribs, and sprained wrist are bandaged. There are three empty vials of blood transfusion potion on the nightstand. His entire body hurts. Despite this, he turns over and the world rolls around in his skull like a pinball before orienting up again. The room is empty. He forces himself to elbow-crawl to edge of the mattress and paw at the night stand, his vision swimming, breathing through his nose. He pulls the drawer open but it’s empty of course. He swallows, rolls back over and sits up, shivering as he does.

“Camille?” he calls, sounding like he ate a bowl of sand recently.

There’s a faint tap, a single footfall outside his bedroom door. A wine glass followed by a one-thousand-year-old vampire enters the room. She’s definitely drinking from his hospitality stash from the DuMort, the one he has in the apothecary, second cabinet down from his vault of Bullshit Cursed Items. It’ll be O-negative, if he has it. So, she’s been rifling through his apartment. Great. He says absolutely nothing for a moment, just watches her pace the length of his bedroom without speaking, visibly lost in thought.

“Get out,” Magnus says eventually.

She ignores him. “You gave up your immortality.”

“You make it sound like a fun thing I did on a Tuesday.”

The wine glass explodes against the wall behind his head, spraying his back with blood and glass.

“THIS ISN’T FUNNY MAGNUS!”

Magnus doesn’t move, just glares at her, ignoring the prickle of glass on his shoulders. He cannot, absolutely cannot flinch in front of her like this.

“No,” he says. “It’s not funny, but it’s not quite so bad that breaking into my apartment to kill me was a great idea, my dear.”

“Don’t ‘my dear’ me. How could you let this happen?”

“Again, making it sound like a lark.”

“You gave it up for _nothing_. For your pet shadowhunters and that little girl.”

“Clary,” Magnus says. “I’ve know her since she was a child.”

“Oh, shut up. You’ve known _everyone_ since they were a child.” Camille keeps pacing his bedroom, her steps heavy as a tiger roaming a cage. “How could you? You’ve done a lot of stupid shit over the years, but this take the cake. Giving up your magic to save your gang of idiot children?”

“And banish Lilith,” Magnus adds, like an afterthought. “I don’t know why people keep leaving that out or assuming Lilith being topside is, like, a breezy vacation situation for her.” He follows Camille with his eyes a moment longer. “How do you even know about this? No one knows.”

“Ugh, darling, I know that’s the blood loss talking. Think.”

Magnus processes for a moment, then, “Where is Raphael?”

“See? That wasn’t so hard.” She digs in her jacket and produces a small, black phone model that Magnus recognizes as Raphael’s. She grins. “I think its precious that he was one of your first to tell when you’re vulnerable. The head of the New York Vampire Clan? Fretting about his warlock mentor?” Her lip curls, “No wonder he couldn’t hold onto power. So _fucking_ emotional.”

Magnus stares, frozen. “What did you do?”

She loops her hands behind her back, feigning innocence. “You mean did I go to the DuMort?” She sashays forward. “Take your boy?” She bares fangs. “And tear his treacherous little heart out?”

Panic and tears sting in the back of Magnus’ throat. “Camille… you didn’t…”

She rolls her eyes. “No, Magnus. God. I would have, but Raphael skipped town.”

The gut-wrenching relief is tempered by confusion. “What?”

“Oh?” She folds her arms, lifting her hand to tap one finger against her jaw, thoughtful. “Right, you don’t know. Raph left his things with his lieutenant before leaving town. The impression Mary-Beth gave me – precious girl, by the way, Raph’s second-in-command. She lasted a long time before giving me what I wanted. Anyway! The impression she gave was rather that he’s been driven out of the city by the Clave and needed go on the lam.”

Magnus stares. “That’s impossible. I spoke to him just… just a week ago.”

“But not since then,” She smiles. “You’ve been distracted, love.”

“Raph wouldn’t leave without telling me. He’d come to me.”

“Not if he thinks that Lightwood boy owns you. Which, my guess? He does.”

Magnus bristles at that. “That’s not –”

“It’s interesting,” she says, cutting him off. “The fact Lightwood didn’t tell you he had Raphael banished suggests an air of subterfuge, doesn’t it? And now that Garrowway has been removed as head of the werewolf packs and even his dear beta’s gone? It’s chaos out there. And I intend to fill the power vacuum.”

Magnus can one pick one horrible thing to focus on: The fact Camille is trying to take power again, the facts of Raphael’s disappearance, or the complete destabilization of the New York Downworld.

“You can’t take power. You left Raphael, your own second in command, to burn when you were in power. No one in the DuMort wants you back.”

“He’s my second. That’s what he’s _there for_. You just don’t understand tactics that don’t involve throwing yourself on the pyre for lesser people and that’s why you’re sitting here with your heart literally ripped out of you for the sake of _nothing at all_.” Her voice kind of breaks a little on those last few words, and she stops, visibly composes herself, and sighs. “Magnus. I don’t want to argue…”

“You do know you’re a fugitive from the Clave right?”

She snaps across the distance between her and the bed, snarling, “I’m the motherfucking Queen of New York! And just because you’ve managed to lose every ounce of power and all perspective on the issue doesn’t mean I have!”

Magnus, who thought she’d do that, just blinks slowly at her.

“Okay,” he says, utterly deadpan.

She stares at him. Then, softly, “Let me help you.”

“I don’t want your help.”

“I can protect you. You know I can. Come with me and I’ll find a way to fix this.”

“I’m never doing that.”

She’s suddenly on the bed with him, kneeling with her boots on his comforter, her faces inches from his.

“I could drag you out the door right now,” she hisses. Her fingers brush his jaw. “You couldn’t stop me. Without your magic, you’re just another half-breed.” Her thumb presses against his lower lip, hard enough the pressure pushes his lip against his teeth. Her eyes flicker, then drop to his mouth, her gaze kind of softening, distracted. “You couldn’t stop me…”

He ignores the hollow dread in his chest, simply holds her eyes. “So you’re Victor, now?”

Her gaze snaps back up to his, instantly, her dark eyes wide and openly horrified. Her hand jerks away from his face, withdrawing to her own chest.

Magnus just waits.

“No,” she murmurs, “No, never.”

“Glad to you know still have a line.” His mouth thins. “Though you have no problem turning me against my will, apparently. Something I’ve told you a hundred times I would never forgive you for doing, even if it were possible, so my consent barely means anything to you in any other arena.”

This is the rarest form Camille ever takes: For an instant, she’s ashamed. Just an instant though. Then it’s gone and she’s rolling her eyes, lip curling.

“I was trying to save your life. Don’t get mad because you don’t want to be talked off the ledge this time.”

“Why didn’t you go through with it? Turning me?”

“I changed my mind,” she snaps.

Magnus huffs. “You seemed so convinced.”

Camille says nothing, her face impassive.

Then suddenly, she says, “All your Clave friends have abandoned you. In fact, they were selling out your family right out from beneath you and you gave up your magic for these ungrateful creatures. You’re dying. I can see it. I can see you trying to hold it together but it hurts, doesn’t it? Like they’ve twisted off a fucking limb and like a goddamn amputee, you keep trying to flex that missing arm.”

Magnus realizes his hands are knotted too late to hide he’s doing it. But when he releases the pressure, his hands shake instead.

“ _Stop it_ , Camille.”

“Tell me you’re okay without your magic,” she says, leaning in again, “that it honestly doesn’t bother you, that is was worth it, that you can be happywithout it… and I will leave you to your irrelevant pointless death.” Her fingers touch his chin, just barely ghosting his skin. “Go on.” Her breath is cool against his lips. “Tell me it was worth it.”

Magnus closes his eyes. “Stop.”

He can feel her smile without looking.

“Get away from m—”

She kisses him, fitting the curl of her forefinger under his chin and tugging his mouth up into hers and when he, startled, opens his mouth to protest, she presses her tongue to his and gathers his head in her hands. For a moment, it’s so… familiar. It’s exactly what he needs. It’s a half-a-century of comfort distilled into one warm, thorough, controlled application of physical contact and the tension slides out of his shoulders before he can stop it. She smells exactly the same as he remembers, feels the same. The instant agonizing rush he feels –

He jerks out of her grip, turning away, pressing the back of his wrist against his mouth.

“You didn’t do that fast enough, love.”

“Get out.”

“I was going to turn you,” she murmurs, and he can feel her moving toward him, slowly, like you coax an animal ready to run. “I stopped,” she says, “because you said you were afraid. You _never_ admit you’re afraid unless it’s debilitating. Unless it’s _real_. That’s why I stopped.” She shifts her weight, moves to slide her hands over his shoulders. “Be honest: You told Lightwood you were afraid to go to Edom, didn’t you? You always admit it when it’s real.”

Magnus can’t answer. His throat has closed up.

Camille smiles. “You did, didn’t you? You said you were terrified, but he didn’t stop you. He didn’t pull you off the ledge. He didn’t hold you in his arms and tell you, ‘I’ll find another way. I can’t lose you. I can’t ask that of you.’ No.” She presses her lips against his skin, breathes, “ _He let you do it_.”

“You don’t know anything.”

“Look at your face. I think I do know.”

“It’s not that _simple_.”

“It’s _never_ simple.” She curls her lip. “You think I don’t know gray from the black and fucking white? I’m sure he had his reasons and his circumstances. I’m sure in another day, another moment, another life, he would have stopped you but in _this_ fucking life… he let you die for him.”

Magnus pulls away from her, gets off the bed. “ _Stop_.”

“I’d never let you die for me, Magnus.” She follows him, sliding off the bed, orbiting like a planet caught in his path. “Everyone else can burn on my pyre, but not you.”

“You used me all the time!” He turns on her, furious. “My whole _life_ with you was you demanding things of me! Loving you was an endless damn parade of grand gestures to prove myself to you! You don’t get to use me, then accuse others of doing the same!”

“That’s stupid,” she says, scoffing. “That’s makes me uniquely qualified for the job. I asked things of you because you’re a young fucking god, Magnus. And I wanted you to prove it, because it made you _better_ , but I’d never ask _that_ of you.” She stares, surprised. “Do you not know that?”

“No one forced me to do this,” Magnus grits, ignoring her baffling confession.

“No one forced you to jump off a bridge in London either.” She’s stone cold as she says it. “The difference is one of us stopped you.”

Magnus stares, horrified and enraged. “You can’t hold that over me forever.”

“I’ll stop holding it over you when you stop being pathetic and suicidal.” She circles him, staring at him, still speaking. “You can fritter on the details but the end results is this: You jumped into hell for Lightwood. He let you. And now you’re dying. Period and he’s not even around to wring his hands and say he’s so, so, sorry for what you had to go through and he’ll never let anything like that happen to you aga–”

“STOP IT!”

“NO!” She bares her teeth. “You’ve fucking mutilated yourself for _shadowhunters_. It disgusts me. But I know this can be undone. So when you’re done crying and mourning and being wounded over this bullshit, come to me, and I will dedicate my life to saving you.”

She moves to touch him, but he backs away.

“I mean it, Magnus. I’ll make you my priority. Not some side project I do after my goddamn day job.” She offers him her hands, palms up, entreating. “I’ll leave New York to burn if it would save you. I have time to get this shit hole city back whenever I choose.” She’s angling him against a wall, backing him into a literal corner. “Come with me and every waking hour will be about you. Helping you. Healing you. I swear it on my grave, beloved.”

“You can’t come in here,” Magnus breathes, “try to kill me, then promise you’re going to save me just because you know, you _know_ I’m scared.” He presses his hands to his face, drops them as fists, furious. “You can’t do this to me!”

“I wasn’t killing you,” Camille says, her fingers brushing his arms, not quite taking him into her hands. “I was giving you a second immortal life. And that’s already more than your fucking shadowhunters have done for you. Look at me, Magnus. I may lie, but I’m not lying about this: I love you. I won’t let you die.”

“You never say that. You never say that unless you want something.:

“You’re right.” She takes his hands in hers. “I want _you_.”

Magnus hates, hates, _hates_ the way his entire heart lurches toward her when she says it. He pulls his fingers from hers, but he doesn’t do it fast enough. He never does it fast enough.

“Get away from me.”

“You can’t die.”

“People keep saying that,” Magnus says, a little breezily. “I assure you, I can.”

Camille slams her palm into the wall by his head. “You and I are not done.”

“ _But I am_ ,” Magnus snarls, pushing off the wall, stepping so close he sees it when her eyes widen a fraction. “You broke out of jail and came straight here like it’s some grand gesture, but you’re just afraid. That’s why you couldn’t turn me – you’re too scared it won’t work.” He laughs, the sound coming throaty and ragged from his chest. “You can’t lose me, because I’m a constant. And that’s all you care about. Constant things. Well, too bad. I gave up my ability to be constant for you.”

She _stares_ , eyes wide. He can’t remember the last time she was speechless.

Magnus moves nearer still. He rarely remembers he’s taller than her. She seems like such a titan in his mind, but here he ducks his head just a little to say, “This is good-bye, Camille. For real.”

And, like he expected, she loses it.

Camille puts her fist through the wall by his shoulder, so fast his eyes can’t follow, but he doesn’t move a fucking inch. She slams a palm into his chest, pinning him to the wall, his collarbone almost buckling under her hand but he doesn’t cry out. She’s breathing hard. Every exhalation underlain with some unformed emotion – volatile and nitroglycerin, dark in her eyes as she looks at him… and seems not to recognize what she sees.

“Get out of my apartment,” he says.

“You can’t die,” she says and, god, she sounds _afraid_.

“I said get out.”

“Don’t do this.”

“Get out!”

He hears the front door click open. His room is empty, Camille having left it in a flicker of vampiric haste. The dead, after all, travel fast. Magnus stays upright for a full thirty seconds. Then, when he’s sure she’s gone, he collapses, clutching his aching ribs and panting, heart pounding. Once he’s on the floor, his brain finally registers that he got out alive, and he starts laughing. It doesn’t last long. Mostly because laughing hurts his ribs, but also because he laughs so hard he starts crying and that seems to confuse the issue.

“Fuck,” he whispers, staggering toward his bed. He falls on his knees, searching… yup. He grabs his phone out from under the bed and dials Catarina. He curls up on the floor besides his bed and stares the baseboard while the ringer goes.

“Magnus?” Her voice on the phone is gentle, always now. “You alright?”

“I need you to come here and re-ward my entire apartment.”

A pause.

“Okay. I will, but what happened?”

“Catarina?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t know what the hell I’ve done.”

There’s a silence.

“I think,” he says, his entire heart collapsing like a dying star, “I think I’ve made a mistake.”

“I’ll be there in a minute,” she says softly.

Magnus is breathing too fast, too ragged, his fist pressed against his sternum and it feels like his lungs are being crushed, like there’s a stutter some atrium of his heart. “What the fuck did I do? What the _fuck_ did I –?”

 

* * *

 

The loft is empty and quiet.

The tea kettle whines in the kitchen for a full minute before Magnus gets up and clicks off the stove. He pours the steaming water into a mug with a plain green tea bag tied around the handle. He puts the kettle back and leaves the mug on the counter to steep. Forgets about it. An hour later, he remembers the mug and starts a fresh kettle and dumps out the cold mug of tea. Outside, it’s a beautiful day. Warm bands of sunlight moving across the walls of his apartment in that way he loves most particularly.

Today, he doesn’t notice it.

He sleeps mostly. Lying fully dressed on the couch (because getting dressed is a step in the right direction) with his phone on silent (because he doesn’t want to deal with anyone). It buzzes only when Izzy texts him an update on the continuous coma of Alec Lightwood and to inform him, _‘still no changes’_ and those texts (terrifying and agonizing as he reads them) are the highlight of his day. Because at least, in those moments, he feels something.

Magnus wakes up. It’s noon.

Magnus wakes up. It’s evening.

Magnus wakes up. It’s morning.

He calls Alec’s phone and listens to his voicemail. He does that three times.

On the last time, he leaves a message.

“Hi Alec. It’s me.”  _Please wake up._ “I wish you were here, because all I want to do is talk to you.” _Why didn’t you stop me?_  “I’m worried about you.” _I’m terrified._ “I miss you.” _I need to talk to you. I need to tell you what I did. If I don’t talk it out with you, I think I’m going to lose my fucking mind._ “I love you.” _I love you._ “I’ll be waiting for you when you wake up.” _I don’t have this time to waste, goddammit, Alexander._ “See you soon.”

He hangs up.

For a while, he stares at the lockscreen and then says, casually, to the phone and no one at all, “Okay.”

And he gets up. He pockets his phone, gets his jacket from the hall closet, charmed sunglasses to hide his eyes, hunts down the keys to his apartment (so long untouched it takes him ten minutes to find them in a random desk drawer) and leaves the loft. The wards murmur closed behind him, attuned to ring on his finger. He locks the door with his keys and pauses, peering at them in his palm. They still have a bit of tape on the key ring from the day the relator gave it to him with the mail key and the security FOB for building. He hasn’t used them in a decade.

“Huh,” he says.

Then he pockets them and takes the elevator down and while his skin still aches every second of every minute of every moment that he’s standing here… Magnus keeps breathing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Magnus gets a little help from his friends and Alec Lightwood gets yelled at by immortals.

“How old are you really?” Alec asks.

His timing is bad. Magnus has just shoved a mass of ramen noodles in his mouth so the question catches him exactly with a huge wad of food dangling from between his teeth and a shocked look on his face. Alec blinks… then immediately busts up snorting laughter. Magnus bites down, neatly trimming off the excess mouthful and chewing rather resentfully, eyes narrowed, while Alec doubles over his own bowl, weeping with laughter. Passing citizens of Osaka eyeball him – a giant, snorting American, pounding the table across from his annoyed boyfriend.

Magnus swallows eventually.

“Shut up,” he says, in that way that is not remotely ancient and otherworldly or warlock-y. He’s grinning though. “I don’t tell anyone how old I am. The Clave already has that stalker power point about me. I’m not giving anyone additional clues to hunt down my given name.”

That gives Alec pause.

“Wait, so it’s not about people knowing your past, it’s about your name?”

Magnus hesitates.

“Well, I don’t want people digging in my childhood either,” says Magnus somewhat wary, “but magically a given name holds power. It’s a little old fashioned of me, but as an unnamed thing I occupy a different category of magic. Makes me just a little harder to curse and protects me completely from a good chunk of Seelie magic.” He waves his chopsticks like a professor with a pointer. “It’s how the whole tradition of warlocks choosing names got started, you know.”

“Because Seelie were cursing warlocks?”

“Kidnapping them. Seelie like rare interesting things. Warlocks are that.”

“Huh. So—” Alec taps a finger on the table – “you don’t tell people your birth name? Ever?”

Magnus looks at him, his weight braced against his forearm, chopsticks hovering in his other hand. Alec is struck briefly by the impression that he pushed too hard because Magnus’ expression is brow-raised and neutral. A processing expression he sometimes wears when composing a polite ‘mind your beeswax’ speech. But eventually Magnus lowers his chopsticks, sticking them upright in a pile of noodles and bean sprouts.

“I’ve told a few people,” he says, a little reluctantly. “But usually for a very specific reason. A spell or something that requires absolute truth.”

Alec studies Magnus’ expression, his posture. Under the flashing Osaka neon, the tawny brown of his skin is illuminated pink and blue in alternating patterns, his dark eyes catching some of the light from the street lamps beyond. He’s wearing jeans and a black shirt that hugs his arms in a way that’s distracting. Alec knows among the various cords, charms, and general protective sets around Magnus’ neck, somewhere under the collar there’s a plain leather lead with the omamori charm at the end.

“What?” Magnus says, not nervous exactly, but guarded.

“Nothing. Just looking at you.” Alec shrugs.

“Yes, ask me penetrating personal questions then stare silently at me. That’s not nerve-racking at all,” Magnus teases, picking up his chopsticks again. “Why do you ask all of a sudden?”

“I don’t know. We don’t talk about it very much.”

“Because we lead exciting lives right now and hardly have time to hash out the past, much less my extensive and admittedly confusing personal history.” Magnus adroitly plucks out a bit of egg from his soup, picking up the bowl in his other hand and talking around a mouthful. “If you’re ever curious, just ask. I’ll tell you what I can.”

“Sometimes I forget.”

Magnus wipes his mouth on the back of his wrist. It’s careless and a little unrefined in a way that, again, Alec finds attractive for some reason.

“Forget what?”

“That you’re ancient,” Alec says, propping his chin in one hand, leaning his elbow on the table. “I’ve met immortals who seem ancient all the time. I dunno. Raphael for example; I look at that guy and it’s like… I don’t know how to explain it. He _feels_ like an sixty-year-old?” Alec grins because this makes Magnus snort with agreeable laughter. “Right? Look, if you stood next to one another, he feels immortal and you don’t. Why is that?”

Magnus chuckles. “Well, immortality is invisible; it just depends how you carry it. Raphael is young for a vampire. He has to throw his immortality around, so to speak. He’ll settle into it when he’s a bit older. When you hit two-hundred that’s usually when it becomes background noise.” A pause. “Or gets worse. There are some immortals who carry it so badly, it’s hard to even look them in the eye. Merlin was like that.”

Alec, who was drinking a Kirin, coughs. “ _What_?”

“What?” Magnus says, blinking blandly.

“Did you say Merlin?”

Magnus reaches for his soda.

“You can’t just say you know Merlin and trail off, you bastard.”

“Lovely weather today,” he says, looking at the perfectly ordinary night sky.

“Is this one of your bullshit stories? This is a bullshit story. You’re fucking with me.”

“I wish,” Magnus says, his voice suddenly kind of low in his throat. His eyes drop lazily down Alec’s neck, his chest, then back up and by the time his eyes reach Alec’s again, he’s probably hot in the face. Magnus smiles, just a little, a lazy uptick in the corner of his mouth. “You know I love to fuck with you, darling.”

Alec fights to maintain some semblance of composure in the middle of this outdoor ramen bar. Then, forcing his tone to an academic drawl, he says, “Okay so Merlin is or isn’t real?”

Magnus, game thrown, looks _offended_.

Alec grins. “I don’t know. I’m so curious about your bullshit story now. I couldn’t possibly be distracted by –”

Magnus drops both arms to the table in front of him. He’s staring at Alec… and then, without warning, he drops the glamore from his eyes. Alec’s feels his insides turns over, hot and low in his belly and for a full five seconds Magnus just sits there for all the world to see, staring at him with naked gold eyes and smiling. The neon lights run blue and red light over his skin, throwing unnatural highlights into his dark hair. Magnus looks like nothing else in this world – a strange thing in an ordinary setting and Alec forgets how to end his sentence.

Magnus blinks and his eyes are dark again. He picks up his bowl and chopsticks, looking bored and smug simultaneously somehow.

“To be fair,” he says, while Alec struggles from extreme blood loss to his brain, “lots of warlocks and witches have claimed to be ‘Merlin’ over the years. So I knew _a_ Merlin but probably not _the_ Merlin – oh, hello.”

Alec literally is removing the ramen bowl from Magnus’ hands, getting it out of the way, so he can stand up, lean across the table and gather the warlock’s head in his hands. His fingers slide up into the long part of his hair, the blunt edge of his nails dragging along the buzzed section of Magnus’ scalp. His tongue tastes like salt and a little bit of the soda he was drinking.

Magnus kind of makes a low noise in the back of throat, somewhere between a sigh and moan. Alec is pretty sure he just knocked over his beer, so desperate was he to get his hands on the man sitting across from him and –

_“Wake up, Alec.”_

Alec pulls back, sliding his hand to cup Magnus’ jaw. The warlock’s breathless, dark eyes unfocused, mouth parted, kiss-bitten. He slides his hands to Alec’s wrists, gripping them, holding his palms where they are. He’s smiling up at him. _For_ him. Alec’s thumb presses into the soft part of his cheek, where his smile dimples his skin and it makes his heart ache. Because he’s allowed to do this. Alec gets to have this smile in this place and he is so hopelessly, heart-stoppingly –

_“Wake up, Alec!”_

Something seizes his shoulders.

The streets of Osaka shudder and crack.

Magnus looks at him and the light on his skin is not blue but orange, lit from beneath. There’s fire all around him. Alec can smell it – the sick scorched stink of skin and hair and fabric and the terror of this flays his soul raw inside him because, _God, it’s burning him. It’s actually burning him. What the fuck? What the fuck—?!_

“I love you, Alexander,” Magnus says, but he’s shaking, flame crawling up his legs. Agony slides into his features in a slow, luxurious way that is so much worse because he’s letting it happen to him.

“No,” Alec says. He’s standing in Magnus’ study. He’s been here before. Panic seizes him, so pure it’s kerosene in his blood. “No, _wait_ –!”

Magnus is burning. Dropping to his knees crying out. Flame races over his back like he’s been doused in an accelerant, until Magnus is a shaking mannequin of fire, doubled over and composed of flame. But he’s still _screaming_.

“No!” Alec tears from where he’s rooted. The fire roars up. “ _Magnus_!”

_“WAKE UP!”_

Alec opens his eyes.

Isabelle, Jace, and his mother are leaning over him. Jace’s hands are latched to the curve of his biceps, his thumbs jammed into the underside of his collarbones. Above him: an unfamiliar ceiling in an unfamiliar bedroom that smells faintly of fresh paint. His family looks terrified. Maryse Lightwood stares down at him, eyes wet with panic. Izzy is not wearing an ounce of make-up, her hair knotted in a two-day old messy bun. Her lip trembles. All the blood has backed from Jace’s face, leaving his brother sickly white and shaky.

“Alec?” Jace whispers. His hands move from Alec’s shoulders to his face, cupping his jaw with shaky hands. “Alec are you with me?”

“He was burning,” Alec whispers, panting, eyes blurred and running over. “Jace, he was _burning_.”

“You were having a nightmare,” Isabelle says. Her hip is on the bed beside him. She’s gripping his palm between her fingers, so hard the bones in his hand ache. “You’re with us now.”

“What’s happening? Where’s Lilith? What –? Ah!” A sick jag of pain rips up from his wrist to the ball-socket joint of his right arm, blinding and all consuming. Now that he’s aware of his arm, he can feel it’s in a split, that his draw hand is a river of fucking agony. “The _fuck_?”

“You’re injured,” his mother says, keeping her voice soft. Her hand is a soft press of heat against his sternum. “Lilith’s banished. No. Don’t try to sit up. Just lie down.”

“Hurts,” Alec grits, eyes stinging.

“I know, baby.” Maryse runs a hand restlessly through Alec’s hair, pushing it sweaty and wrecked from his forehead. He can’t remember seeing her cry before. “It’s just taking longer than normal to heal. Just be tough for me, okay?”

“You’re okay,” Jace says. His thumb drags along Alec’s jaw. “You’re okay. Just… relax. Alright?”

Then Jace presses his brow to Alec’s and the contact is like a shot of ice water through his veins. Alec jerks, breath hitching as the aching braid of their parabatai bond lights up between them, a dead circuit going suddenly, agonizingly live. Alec feels it like a shot of morphine diffusing through his head. It feels so good he wants to sob. Jace keeps holding him. Uncharacteristically gentle, cradling Alec’s head and murmuring. He only does this in battle – when they’re fucked up. When he’s trying to distract Alec from, say, a gaping arterial wound.

“Careful,” Izzy says anxiously.

“It’s okay,” Maryse murmurs. “Trust your brother.”

Alec can barely speak because it’s overwhelming, because Jace doesn’t usually let the bond lay open like this unless things are bad. Really bad. Jace’s emotions are a dull ache in Alec’s mind, like a bruise inside his head that pulses with every heartbeat and that shouldn’t feel good but it does. He shouldn’t want to lean into it, but he does. Alec breathes slower, his heartrate falling, eyes sliding shut with Jace pressing comfort into the surface of his soul like a salve, dosing him on loaned vitality until he’s groaning, shaking with relief, his head falling back.

“Jace.” Alec feels drunk, feels drugged on the psychic glow of the parabatai bond. “Jace, where is…? Where’s Magnus?”

Isabelle squeezes his hand. “Focus on yourself right now.”

“Why won’t you tell me?” Alec chokes, voice cracking. “Is he dead?”

“Jesus, no.” Jace sounds pained as he says it. “Of course not. Go back to sleep.” He feels Jace press his mouth against his forehead, something he can’t remember him doing since they were kids. “Just go to sleep.”

“I need to talk to him,” Alec breathes, but his vision’s swimming. “I need to. _Please_.” The room is spinning. “I have to tell him…”

But he doesn’t know what he needs to tell him. Because what he needs to tell him is ‘ _stop’_ but he needs to have said it in that burning room in Magnus’ loft. There is a golden path, a shining alternate universe, where a weaker version of Alec Lightwood seizes Magnus Bane around the waist and yanks him from the edge of the pentagram, crushes the warlock to his chest, and stands there breathing the smell of his skin until the fire burns out.

In that universe, maybe they’re all dead. Maybe the Owl kills him in an alley and dismembers Magnus while Lilith looks on, but in that universe at least, he didn’t watch Magnus burn.

In this universe, Alec passes out again.

* * *

 

Magnus looks up. Then over his shoulder, peering into the length of alleyway behind him. A small quirk of his heritage: his cat-eyes actually do allow him to see significantly better in the darkness than the average human being, catching and refracting the faintest light between dual retina and throwing the world into greater relief. And, when that isn’t enough, there is some measure of the demonic in the ocular mechanism.

He can feel it when they start to illuminate, like dim lamps in his skull, marking him as something he isn’t anymore, but a strange comfort now. A physical reminder that he is still, in a way, what he’s always been. Just one degree removed.

“What’s goin’ on, Magnus? Disturbance in the force or what?”

Magnus blinks, turning back to his escort: three very edgy DuMort Clan vampires and the infamous Molly Bennett, who’s watching the ally now with a careful consideration.

Molly doesn’t look like she should be head of Magnus’ body detail – wearing high-tops, striped leggings, and shorts – but he’s knows from personal experience that looking dangerous and being dangerous are two different things. Molly Bennett is rather dangerous and represents more than herself right now. She is also an extremely pretty woman with complicated dreadlocks and a naturally skeptical face. Her skin is so dark it looks blue in the night.

“No disturbance,” Magnus says. “Someone walking on my grave I guess.”

“Hmm,” she says. She flicks her tongue against her teeth, a bar clicks against bone and Magnus feels an itch like static. Some pre-made detect-evil charm skittering across the world around them.

“Can’t walk on a warlock’s grave,” says Molly. “You fuckers live forever.”

Magnus’ smile is lopsided. “Sweet girl, you know that’s not true. Particularly today.”

“Nah,” she says. “Not you, cat-eyed grandfather. You gonna live forever and ever, young god.”

“I wish I shared your optimism.”

There’s a faint mew from a patch of darkness near a dumpster and bit of shadow separates itself from the blackness. Molly’s familiar, a small black cat fondly named ‘Sprinkles’, races toward Magnus and bounds up his leg to his outstretched forearm, then perches on his shoulder where she busies herself dragging her small sandpaper tough across his temple.

“Hello, Sprinkles,” he says, “any luck out there?”

Sprinkles flaps her tail against the back of his neck and he gets a flash, not words, but an impression of threat and blurred imagery from the perspective of a creature lying close the concrete, peering up from under a bench: pale human figures, a woman in black, her hair bound back saying, “ _Motherfucking find him. The first one to bring him to me, I’ll make them a god in this city, but bring him to me. He’s got no magic, so none of you have an excuse.”_ And then the impression stops and Magnus blinks, shaking off the psychic residue and the chill of hearing Camille talking about him like that.

Molly, who certainly saw the same imagery but more clearly, tilts her head at him.

“You good?”

“At this rate, all of New York will know about me,” he mutters, stroking Sprinkles gently. He starts walking again, taking small comfort in the cat’s low purring against his ear. “I thought she’d come after me, but this….”

“She wants you bad.”

Magnus’ gut churns at the phrasing but Molly doesn’t notice.

“The Bennett bloodline’s been beefing with that bitch for a billion years,” says Molly, visibly pleased with the acid in her alliterative statement. “She’s crazy. Sorry, man, I’m not even a little surprised she went Rambo on you.”

“Less talking, more walking,” snaps Mary-Beth. She, of the three vampires is the highest ranking. Raphael’s second-in-command. She’s Amazonian, purple dye-job, pixie-cut, ethereal. Her right ear is also docked like a dog’s. The wound still raw. “Look, I’m not waiting around for Camille to catch us out in the open.”

Magnus eyes the missing section of her ear. “I can ask Catarina to help with that you know.”

“Fuck that, warlock. I want to remember what that bitch did.”

Magnus grimaces, but nods.

Their group reaches the end of the alley, exiting into the main streets heading toward Union Street. The neon luminance makes Magnus’ eyes hurt for a moment. He reaches up and thumbs an amethyst stud in his right brow, making three quick hand motions before a spark of illusion flicks across his eyes and dims the demon-light in his irises. It’s four steps to do a simple glamore and the damn thing is on a battery. It’ll fade in a week and need to be recharged.

Used to be it was magic he did unconsciously, endlessly, unthinking.

“You good?” demands Mary-Beth, eyeballing him. For all that she is militant, she’s one of Raphael’s and at her core, it’s her protective streak that her sire was drawn to. Her loyalty to Raph is vicious, complete, and extends to Magnus in a way that’s somewhat surprising. “Hey, Bane. You good?”

“I’m fine. Still getting used to witchcraft.”

“Warlocks are spoiled,” Molly says, looping an arm through his. She play-taps his chin with a curled fist. “His kind tug up veins of the earth up at a moment’s notice, but this magic’s slow and steady. Give it time and you’ll have some measure of magic giving you its ear. I promise.”

“It’s just…” Magnus closes his eyes. “Everything feels so _cold_. Magic isn’t supposed to feel that way.”

“Right, cuz you had magic in your goddamn blood every minute of every day,” says Molly gently. “Like a ley line running through your body. Aint the case anymore. Gotta reacquaint yourself with magic.”

“I’m trying.”

Her eyes scan him. “You hurtin’? Cuz Catrina said—”

Magnus laughs, a little tiredly. “I’m getting accustomed to the ache. No worries, love.”

They follow their vampire escort down the street, passing the happy chatter of mundane night life until they reach a fairly non-descript doorway. A tell-tale sign of a vampire dive: When otherwise unremarkable doors are built deeply recessed into the wall so a prospective vampire could open it in broad daylight and never risk a direct ray of sunshine touching them. They huddle in this narrow alcove while Mary-Beth knocks on the door.

There’s a murmur.

Then the door opens and Raphael Santiago, Head of the New York Vampire Clan, is standing in the doorway looking absolutely fucking furious. Raphael is not, actually, a very big vampire. He’s shorter than Magnus by about half a head. Which just means he has a low center of gravity and is more likely to pick Magnus up and body slam him if the mood strikes.

Luckily, Sprinkles the cat is still perched on Magnus’ shoulder so the immediate threat of being punched by his adoptive and extremely powerful vampire ward is somewhat reduced.

“If it makes you feel better,” Magnus says, “Catarina already slapped me.”

“If there wasn’t a witch’s familiar on your shoulder, I would break your nose,” Raphael says with an impressive level of calm. “What the fuck did you do?”

“I traded my magic for a spell to break Lilith’s anchor in this realm,” says Magnus, the line somewhat rote by now. “It’s difficult to explain.”

“You should be dust,” Raphael says. “A pile of idiotic dust with no survival instincts.”

“Wellll,” Magnus says, leaning on the last consonant for effect, “if I’d had my magic violently ripped from me, then I would be a pile of very old mummy dust. As it was a trade, I negotiated for a full mortal life. So, I’m dying at the normal rate of decay for a mortal. Fear not.”

And that, of course, was _not_ the thing to say because Raphael’s expression immediately flips on itself, going from rage to a kind of open-faced horror and it takes Magnus a dull, idiotic moment to remember why. Maybe it’s the exhaustion, the stress, or the low-grade ache that’s always there in his bones like there’s something rotten in his marrow. Maybe it’s all of these things but he forgot:

Rosa Santiago is dead.

And Magnus just told Raphael he has, now, not seen the last of his family dying slow.

A hand closes on Magnus’ elbow and with a sickening wrench of vampire speed, he’s yanked into the room and slammed against a wall. This disturbs Sprinkles greatly the old black cat hisses, bristling, and Magnus feels a groan in the grain of the wood floors, a whisper of magic in the familiar’s rage.

“Hey, watch the fuckin’ cat,” Molly says, entering the room. “And watch the warlock. I didn’t drive us out to fucking Utica just to have you break his neck.”

But Raphael is ignoring Molly entirely. He’s gripping Magnus by the elbows, pinning him to the wall with enough undead strength that Magnus feels it in his bones. The room is an old stripped-brick apartment with the look of a bunker. So a safehouse. A sun shelter for vampires and a hideout from the Clave in times of trouble. There does not appear to be anyone else here, so Raphael reactivated this locale himself.

“Do you remember what you said to me?” Raphael whispers. He grabs Magnus by the shoulders and shakes him a little, his expression wavering between a pure, murderous, blood-fury rage and an intimate, very non-immortal agony. “When we met? When I was so far fucking gone there wasn’t any light left for me. What did you promise me?”

Magnus’ heart races, throbbing in the back of his closing throat.

“Raphael…”

“What did you say to me, Magnus?”

There’s a deafening silence, hideous with the answer yet unsaid. Sprinkles seems to sense this and, quietly, hops down from Magnus’ shoulder. The familiar takes her leave with Molly. Mary-Beth likewise shoos the other vampires out of the room, leaving Magnus alone with Raphael. Then and only then does Magnus exhale.

He swallows and quietly, in his faintly lilted Spanish, murmurs:

_“I said I would be there for you always.”_

Raphael’s mouth pulls ugly. _“Can’t do that now can you?”_

“Raphael—”

 _“No! You shut up!”_ Raph is so furious, he’s baring fang at this point, vampire light flickering in his retinas. “ _You should have never done this. What the fuck is wrong with you? You can never fucking think straight when it’s Lightwood and Clary Fray. You drop everything and set yourself on fire for them. For nephilim. For their bullshit!?”_

He slams his fist against the wall by Magnus’ head, the brick cracking and coughing mortar.

“Goddammit, Magnus!” There are tears now in Raphael’s eyes. “What the fuck did you do?”

Magnus doesn’t know what to say. There’s no explanation that will stack up against the raw festering wound that’s there in the vampire’s still mortal soul and for a terrible, treacherous moment Magnus wishes Raphael was more like Camille. That he loved nothing. Cherished nothing. Mourned nothing. He wishes immortal sociopathy on his ward purely as a mercy, to spare the young vampire the brutality of time and injustice… Then Magnus recovers himself and wordlessly, moves off the wall and reaches out.

“Raphael…”

He twitches his arms away from Magnus and backs away. “Don’t touch me.”

Magnus ignores him and takes another step forward.

“I said don’t touch me!” Raph bares his fangs, intentionally this time. When Magnus ignores him, he snatches Magnus’ wrist with shadow-quick speed, too fast to follow with the naked eye and yanks Magnus’ arm wide. “I will break your goddamn wrist! You think I won’t?”

Magnus just reaches up with his other hand, fits his palm against the place where Raphael’s ear meets his jaw, fitting his thumb against the curve there, curling his fingers at the nape of his neck. Raphael is cool to the touch. Just south of regular human temperature. Vampires aren’t actually cold, just anemic seeming, warmed by a fainter spark of life than mortals. He’s looking at Magnus like the warlock is prying his ribcage apart.

“Goddamn you,” Raphael says, but the syllables are breaking apart.

Magnus tugs Raph forward, pulling his head against his shoulder and finds his other arm suddenly free. So that hand he fits to space between Raphael’s shoulder blades and pulls the vampire into a hug so tight his arms ache from the force of it. He turns his face against side Raphael’s head, pressing his mouth against the edge of his hairline, against his brow, and he murmurs over and over:

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Raphael. I’m so, so sorry.”

“How could you do this?” Raphael is slack in his grasp.

“I had to. I had to, I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t _have_ to,” Raphael says, agonized. “You could have left it to the Clave. You could have run away. You could have…” He makes this noise, like a sob but there’s a creaking sub-tonal reverb in it. A purely vampiric sound, made in the throes of great fear or pain. “You can’t be mortal,” he says at last. “I can’t do this again. I can’t do this with _you_ , Magnus.”

He grabs suddenly at Magnus’ back, fingers closing in his jacket and fisting there so tight seams pop, but he doesn’t notice. He buries his face against Magnus’ collarbone, where his throat meets his shoulder. Magnus doesn’t say anything. He just holds on tighter and strokes Raphael’s hair, fitting his fingers to the back of his skull and hushing, softly, repeatedly. Raphael jerks in his hold, racked silently by each breath.

“Rosa was supposed to be the last one,” he says. “It was over. It was over, Magnus. The worst was fucking over and now you do this.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to. I just… it was the only way I could see.”

“You can’t,” he says again. His breath shudders. “You can’t go.”

“I’m not going anywhere, _mi hijo_.”

Raphael’s grip on his jacket shifts, moves suddenly to his shoulders, gripping them from behind. Holding him. He turns his face against Magnus throat and Magnus knows Raphael feels it when his pulse jumps, when his breath shallows. His fear will be loud, obvious, and physical to him. He feels Raphael freeze, resolve himself, then fit a hand to the back of Magnus’ neck. He lifts his head so he’s breathing against the place that would be Magnus’ jugular vein if he brought fang to bear and for a moment neither of them move. Magnus doesn’t pull away. He doesn’t flinch.

Because Raphael would never, ever, without his express asking.

Raphael speaks, so, so softly. “Magnus...?”

“No.” Magnus answers the question between them. “I’m sorry, Raphael. I’m afraid that will never be an option for me. No matter the state of my magic, I am still… you can’t turn me.” He swallows, hard, and closes his eyes, pressing his cheek against Raphael’s brow. “Camille tried, but even she knew it was true.”

Raphael goes motionless then. Goes dead-still. Vampire-still. Momentarily so inert he barely registers as any kind of living thing. Slowly, he moves his hands to Magnus’ biceps, pulling back so he can look Magnus in the eye, all trace of former grief erased now by a fresh and glorious rage. He stares up at Magnus and the warlock can see the bloody mechanisms ticking there.

Softly, he says, “What the fuck do you mean ‘she tried’?”

Magnus remains deadpan. “I mean she tried.”

Raphael’s expression is a wasteland. A nuclear winter exists in his stare.

“Okay,” he says.

He turns away from Magnus and takes a brisk walk to the other side of the room to a small but modern kitchen and bar. He wordlessly rifles through the cabinets and eventually produces a bottle of whiskey. Then he produces a bottle of what is definitely blood from a mini fridge. He hooks two short glasses from a tray, puts ice in one glass and pours two fingers of whiskey. Still wordlessly, he pours two fingers of blood into the other glass and downs that, then pours another.

Magnus approaches slowly, picking up the whiskey glass. He likewise downs the lot and puts the glass down again and Raphael refills it for him. Magnus does not remark on the fact Raphael is pouring him whiskey rocks – his favored heartache drink.

“I assume you came looking for me because you have a plan of attack,” says Raph, calm now, steely-eyed. Rage clarifies him. Hate focusing him. He is the Head of the New York Vampire Clan once more. So he fills his glass again and arches his eyebrows. “To be clear: Isabelle Lightwood has dirt on me. Legitimate bad behavior I’m afraid. I… didn’t handle Rosa’s death very well.” He takes a sip of blood, contemplating Magnus. “But on the grand scheme of things, I don’t think she’ll out me when she can use me to fight Camille.”

Magnus frowns. “Isabelle banished you? Not the Clave?”

Raphael shrugs. “Same difference.”

“I suppose,” says Magnus, disturbed by this, but too tired to find his anger. “Why didn’t you call me? I would have read them the riot act on your behalf.”

“I was embarrassed Magnus. I did things you would have hated.”

“Well don’t do that again. Or at least take your phone with you next time.”

Raph huffs, tapping a thumb against his glass. “So… witches?” He arches a single brow. “I get shoring up allies before a fight, but… a coven? No offense, but witchcraft just isn’t on the same level as warlock magic. Why aren’t you calling on the warlocks?”

“Because Lorenzo put out an official sanction against me,” says Magnus, so cheerfully it can be nothing but gallows humor. “I’m persona non grata until further notice. And there are actually very few warlocks who would risk jailtime for me knowing I have no power. And the ones that would risk themselves, I could never ask to do so.”

“Great,” Raphael deadpans. “So, you have no friends and no magic. You better have a plan, old man. Because Camille will definitely find us if you plan to stay in the city, which it seems like you are.”

Magnus smiles.

“Dear boy, of course I have a plan.”

***

There is a voicemail on Alec’s phone.

It’s a week old and there are no other messages.

It goes, _“Hi Alec. It’s me. I wish you were here, because all I want to do is talk to you. I’m worried about you. I miss you. I love you. I’ll be waiting for you when you wake up. See you soon.”_

Then a second message, _“Alexander, I have to start this with an apology. When you wake up, I might not be there. I’m sorry for that. I love you, but I have arrangements I need to make in light of my circumstances. I’ll be back. Just give me time.”_

A week later, five messages appear in Magnus’ voicemail one after another in a 24-hour period. They go like this:

_“Magnus, I’m awake. If I sound like shit, it’s because there was an arrow in my chest and its ghost is fuckin’ up my lungs. I’m sorry the bastards at the Institute wouldn’t let you in. Everything is a mess and I’m buried in after-action reports. Clary exonerated Jace before she… Anyway, he’s being cleared of charges, but things are really messed up. Where are you? Can you come in? I want to see you. Jace says something went wrong with your magic, but I can’t remember everything honestly. I think he has the details wrong. Call me.”_

_“Magnus. When I said text me back, I hoped for more than a two-word response and a life-sign selfie? Are you alright? Call me. I need to hear your voice, okay?”_

_“Magnus. Luke says you’ve lost your magic completely?! Please pick up and talk to me. Lorenzo Rey just filed a fucking sanction against you. There’s some kind of turf war going down with the DuMort Clan and Raphael is off the grid. What the hell is going on? You’re scaring the shit out of me. Please call me so I can make sure you’re safe.”_

_“Magnus. This is me now. It’s me. Please. I love you. If you… if you’re hurt please let me help you. Please don’t shut me out. If you blame me… then tell me at least, but please don’t go silent like this. Please. Call me.”_

And finally.

_“Magnus. I just got the finalized list of convicts that broke out of Alicante. Camille was one of them. I’m coming to find you.”_

***

Jace is still kind of crazy, but at least when he’s standing next to his parabatai, he’s less crazy. Alec can feel him on a constant feedback loop now, the frequency between them on a relentless loud speaker pitch. His emotions are a hairline fracture in Alec’s brain, a wound you brush unexpectedly and it grates against itself. But Jace doesn’t have demonically poisoned wounds and Alec doesn’t have unforgiving psychotic episodes.

Between the two of them, they’re almost one functional shadowhunter.

They’re in the elevator to the top floor of Magnus’ building. Alec glares at the digital floor read-out over the door. Jace is staring at his palms. There are dark cracks in the usual creases of his hands, weird scars Alec’s never seen before. Like Jace’s hands were split open the way bread splits open at the top in an oven.

“His friend, Catarina,” says Jace eventually. “The night we banished Lilith. She almost killed me.”

“What?” Alec stops glaring at the elevator and stares at Jace, stunned. “Why would she do that?”

“I walked in on her and Magnus. She was crying like he just told her he’d been shot or something.” Jace is expressionless as he says this, staring still into the cracks in his hands. “You ever seen a warlock lose their shit?”

“Yeah. A few times.”

“I didn’t know it felt like that. So weird. Like having a mountain angry with me.” He looks at Alec. “Is that how it is with Magnus? Not when he’s angry. When he’s happy. Is it like having something that fucking big be in love with you?”

Alec wasn’t expecting that question and stares, dumbfounded at Jace but his brother just gives him that blank, shell-shocked, dead-eyed look he’s been wearing for the past twenty-four hours and Alec says, slowly, “I don’t know. I guess I don’t have anything to compare it to.” He’s not sure why that fills him a kind of dread. “He’s just… Magnus, you know?”

Jace nods, staring forward again.

“I’ll wait at the end of the hall. If Magnus is there, Alec, I…” Jace scrubs a hand over his face. “Um, I couldn’t save Clary. Magnus, he… he gave up his magic to get me free and I was too fucking slow. If he looks at me like Catarina did. I can’t – I can’t handle it. Don’t tell him I’m here. Please –”

It takes Alec about three minutes to calm Jace down and he makes the decision to wait in the lobby downstairs.

***

Catarina answers the door.

Alec wasn’t expecting that, first of all, and he certainly wasn’t expecting the look on her face when she meets his eyes. Catarina Loss, among the glittering assemblage of Magnus Bane’s immortal friends, doesn’t play up her beauty the way a lot of the others tend to. Or lean into strangeness. There’s a constant pragmatism to her, a utilitarianism that he likes. She, unlike Magnus, is straightforward and plain in her meaning.

So it’s very plain when she says, “What the hell do you want, Lightwood?”

“I was looking for Magnus?” Alec says, stumbling a little.

“He’s not here,” she says, tone absolute sub-zero.

“Do you know where he is? I’m worried about him.”

“Sounds like a you problem,” she says, leaning against the door.

Alec stares and suddenly the configuration of the world is starting to come into focus, to sharpen like a camera lens finding the right depth. Catarina’s statuesque features are cold as fired clay one-thousand years set into their lines and what he sees in her face is open, bald-faced _disgust_. For him. Him personally and specifically. And the opinion of others would not fill him with panic if it were anyone else than Catarina Loss, because Catarina has the temperature of most things, but most of all… she’s got a number on Magnus’ real feelings. Sometimes, long before he does.

Alec stares, at a loss for a moment, then shores up. “Look, I just want to talk him.”

“Again. A you problem. If your boyfriend isn’t answering his phone. Maybe ask yourself why and just give the man some space.”

“I’ve been in a coma for three weeks,” Alec says, somewhat deadpan. When that gains him nothing, he says, “Catarina, _please._ I know you’re angry, but you have to tell me if he’s okay. That’s all I –”

“I don’t have to do _shit_ , shadowhunter.” The air suddenly violently chills around them and all at once Alec can see his own breath, frozen in the cold-front rolling off the warlock before him. “You want Magnus? Tell you what, I’ll trade you. That’s what warlocks usually do; we set a price for our services.”

“Cat, what are you –?”

“Jace Herondale,” she says. No hesitation. “His pretty blue eyes, gouge them out for me, come back with proof. I’ll tell you where Magnus is.”

“What the _hell_?” Alec jerks back step from her.

“What?” She shrugs. “That’s not a fair price?”

“Catarina. That’s… Jesus. Why would you say something like that? What the hell does that mean?”

“Means you sent Magnus into a fight that wasn’t his!” Catarina steps into the hall and the air is so cold around her, Alec’s skin hurts where she nears him. “I’m putting it in terms you understand, soldier-boy. If Magnus came back blinded to save Jace, then you’d almost understand what he’s lost. So trade me that shit right back and I’ll give you Magnus.”

“That’s not… that is not what happened.”

“I told you, I fucking warned you” She taps his chest with one finger and his shirt freezes against his skin. “You’re _just_ like Camille. Just another–”

“Alec?” a voice says, excited.

Catarina’s icy magic disappears.

She smiles and turns just as Madzie pulls the door open, her hair a pair of brown puffs gathered at the top of her head. She’s in a yellow jumper and sneakers with plastic daisies in the detailing, her fists clenched at her chest in little girl excitement. Alec, following Catarina’s lead, forces the biggest smile and winds up a bright, voluminous voice.

“Madzie!” he enthuses as she dashes out in the hall. “The best little warlock in the world!”

She darts around Cat and he instinctively ducks down as she leaps into his arms, fully 100% expecting him to catch her so he does. He swings her up and around. She squeals with delight, before he sets her back down on her little sneakers. Once there, she stomps briefly with an over-abundance of energy, yelling, “Again! Again!”

He looks to Catarina, lost in this interaction, but she nods so he takes Madzie up again under her armpits and spins her, tossing her a tiny distance up in the air and catching her as she falls.

She shrieks, throwing her arms around his neck, jamming her face happily against the deflect rune under his chin. Something fragments inside him and he sets Madzie down, crouching low with her so they’re sitting eye-to-eye for a moment. He maintains his smile, despite every clawing instinct not to.

“Hey, it’s so good to see you,” he says, tapping her on the shoulder and tugging her sleeve a little. “But I think Cat and I need to talk. Okay?”

“Okay,” Madzie says, skipping away. “Bye, Aleeeeeec!” She waves as she goes, the door slamming magically shut behind her.

Cat says nothing for a while, then, “Magnus’ power is gone. Word’s already spread.” Again, she says nothing for a while, just looking at the door Madzie went through. “It’s going to be so dangerous for him now.”

“I can help,” Alec says.

“Haven’t you and yours done enough?”

“I…” Alec fumbles. He’s fucking this up. Catarina is glacial and unmoved and he’s fucking this up. “I owe him a debt,” Alec says at last. He takes his heart, yanks it from its moorings and shoves it still beating into some box, kicks that box in a corner and leaves it there to rot. “Look, take everything else out of it and just make it a transaction. I owe. Let me do something to even things out. I’m still the Head of the New York Institute. I’m a shadowhunter. Ask me what I can do for Magnus.”

Cat tilts her head, almost intrigued.

Alec leans into it, asking, “Tell me how I can help.”

Cat is about as tall as Magnus, just short enough she’s looking up at him. She steps closes. Eventually, she reaches up, taking his chin between her thumb and forefinger. Goosebumps break out across his arms immediately. Her fingers bite like ice. Her eyes are dark, fathomless deep as they assess some detailing in his eyes.

She says, “You’re cursed, Alec Lightwood.”

And it’s like she’s laying an invocation on him, a coldness sliding through is veins. So indifferent and brutal it shouldn’t give him any relief but it does. Magnus’ closest living friend looks him dead in the eyes and reads the history of violence in his mortal soul like you read the back off a dime-store novel. She tugs his head down and he lets her.

“There’s old black magic,” she whispers, “binding your soul. You’re a soul-bound parabatai – hardwired to choose your own kind. Every time. You’re a war machine, kid.” She shakes her head slow. “I like you too, Alec. I do. I think you love Magnus true enough to break a curse if you kissed him, but this is not a fairy tale you’re too far gone.”

“Stop,” Alec says, turning his face aside. “I already said, I’ll do whatever it takes. You don’t have to–”

“Hold fucking still, nephilim, and _listen_ to your elders.” Catarina jerks his chin up again. She bares her teeth. “I do not have Magnus’ endless goddamn patience to wait around until you figure out how you feel.”

“I love Magnus,” Alec says, because it’s true.

“Irrelevant,” Cat says, “because you love like a shadowhunter. Your siblings are your soldiers. Your friends are your underlings. Your lover is your weapon. It’s clear as day under the mushroom cloud, Lightwood. Magnus is your A-bomb. You love him so much it kills you, but he’s just too useful to leave on the sidelines.”

“ _Stop_.”

“My best friend is going to _die_ because of you.” Cat’s lip starts to tremble before she gets control of herself. “Or maybe that doesn’t matter to you because you won’t have to live to see him go. He gets one life. One, just for you, so what do you care?”

“That is not true,” Alec whispers. “I’m not gonna let it happen. Cat, I swear, I’m going to fix it. I’ll find a way—”

“You wouldn’t have to fix it,” she seethes, “if only you hadn’t asked him the first place.”

“I didn’t ask him to do this!”

“You don’t have to ask!” Cat throws her hands and five lightbulbs explode in their wall sconces, darkening the hall. “That’s a beauty of it, right?” She’s sobbing but enraged. “He’ll just _offer_ his fucking throat. Easiest kill you ever had. Right, shadowhunter!”

And Alec means to yell, but that word gets lost from his lungs to his lips and he just… _stares_. Blank with horror.

“ _What_?” Alec says, because all other words fail him.

His heart’s in his throat, dread like bile on his tongue. Cat seems… surprised. With herself or him, he cannot tell but he watches her eyes flicker with a mirroring grief, so familiar but stranger than his own. Her empty hand hovers still in front of her, her fingers soft now, touching nothing.

“I know,” she whispers, “that you didn’t ask him.” Her cheeks are wet. “And I know… he had so many other reasons for what he did, but the fact remains I don’t think you can fix it, Alec.” She buries her face in her hands. “God, I don’t know how to fix it either.”

“Catarina,” Alec says, but he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say.

“He’s in Hell’s Kitchen,” she answers, rather like she didn’t hear him. Her fingers shake as she says this, her lips moving against her palms. “He’s there with Raphael at the Bennett Community Center. I know shadowhunters don’t give a shit about them, but the Bennett Sisters run the biggest witch coven in the State so if you find Magnus there, you better make it clear you’re a friend or you won’t get within fifty yards of him.”

“Witches?” Alec says, baffled. “Witches do magic tricks. Magnus can’t seriously be asking witches for help.”

Catarina laughs. “Oh, honey. You don’t know shit.”

***

 

The Bennett Community Center on the south side of Hell’s Kitchen is an old red brick building. Ivy grows so thick over the outside, it chokes the security grating over the windows. Four improbably large oak trees grow in a strangely riotous section of lawn. The grass is thick, mossy, interrupted by wood logs that frame garden boxes heavy with tomatoes and bursting with angelica, amaranth, and monkshood. The entire building, in fact, is surrounded by a strip of lawn choked by growing things.

There is a single concrete walkup to the main entrance.

Lounging at the top of the stairs, reading a book and looking bored, is a young woman in shorts and striped stockings, chewing bubble gum and gauging their approach the way someone sizes up for a fist-fight.

“Hi,” Alec says. “I’m looking for Magnus Bane.”

“And I wanna meet Santa Claus,” says the woman on the steps. “But we don’t all get what we want, do we?” Then she sticks two fingers in her mouth and whistles.

Alec doesn’t see them coming. But you rarely do when it’s vampires.

There’s hiss of motion and suddenly four pale, angry undead flank him, faster than a blink, but Alec maintains his conversational demeanor. Jace, following his lead, kind of bristles, but likewise doesn’t attack. The woman doesn’t even bother standing up, just looking at him. A very pink orb of bubblegum expands between her lips, then pops. She raises her voice, like she’s yelling at someone across the street.

“Raph! You know this shadowhunter? He’s actin’ familiar.”

“I know him,” says a voice from directly behind Alec.

Alec, again, manages not to flinch despite the sudden materializing of additional Downworlders. He turns around slowly.

Raphael Santiago has the bearing, generally, of a man who has better things to do. Always. Constantly. And he’s letting you know about it through the graceful but completely impatient way that he looks at you over folded arms. His dark hair is slicked back, his bespoke suit almost an anachronism. Like he should be in a 1920’s speak-easy, but just a touch too modern for it.

He’s also looking at Alec with the thinnest smile possible. There is fang in the structure of it.

“I only need a minute,” Alec says quietly.

Raphael’s dark eyes flicker, then he slips his hands into his pockets and kind of paces around Alec, passing him and moving toward the woman on the stairs.

“Molly, do we know if Magnus is here?” he asks, voice candied in ignorance.

“I don’t know. I think if I knew a thing about Magnus Bane it would not be speaking about it to weird nephlim who show up unannounced on my lawn,” she says, not looking up from the book she is reading. There’s a black cat now, perched on her shoulder. “Witches aren’t under Clave jurisdiction. We’re human and hold our own council.” She finally looks up at Alec and her eyes are strange almost luminous grey. “Put simply: Witches ain’t snitches, kid. Get off my lawn.”

“I’m not here as a shadowhunter.”.

“Stop talking,” says Molly, all trace of amusement gone in her dark features. “Jeez, boy. You’re persistent. Fuckin’ comprehend me: Magnus Bane is under the protection of the Hell’s Kitchen Coven. Raphael and his vampires are also our guests. You are not. So get gone or I’m going to give you terror.”

Alec holds his ground. “Look, I just want to see him.”

“I don’t care what you want,” Raphael says easily. “Magnus is busy. If he wants you, he’ll call you. Until then?” He jerks his head, indicating the road. “Fuck off.”

“Lorenzo has him blackballed. Word is all over the street now that something is wrong with Magnus’ magic. If his enemies aren’t already coming they will and that’s not even including Camille. You really think now’s the time to turn aside allies?”

Raphael’s brows rise just a centimeter. “You saying you’d withhold aid from Magnus just because he won’t talk to you face-to-face, _pendejo_?”

“What? Of course not.”

“Then you don’t need to see him. You just _want_ to see him.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Alec bursts out before he can stop himself. “The last time I saw Magnus was on the goddamn battle field. Will you just give me a _minute_?”

Molly and Raphael stare at him. Unmoved.

Then Molly sighs.

“No,” Raphael says.

“I can let Magnus know he’s here,” Molly mutters. “If he says ‘fuck off’ then that’s that.”

“You don’t get it,” Raphael says, furious. “There is a reason Magnus hasn’t called this guy in. If he wanted him here he’d have already been part of this team.” Raphael glares at Alec. “Why don’t you just back off and just let his family figure this out? This don’t concern you.”

“Magnus _is_ my –!”

Alec stops.

There is a very, very long silence.

Jace is a jolt in his brain like a tugged string unraveling into a different fabric of emotion – warm beneath the confusion. Alec doesn’t even have to see Jace’s face to know what he looks like: kind of wide-eyed, brows raised for a second before the edges go out of it. _Really?_ It says, then, _Well, no, that makes sense._ Which is really not helping while he has a very, very angry vampire giving him a pure murderous stare down.

“Oh _no_.” Raphael shakes his head slowly, fangs coming to bear. “You have known him less than a year.” Raphael starts to move toward him. There’s an echo in his voice now, the cold sub-tonal frequencies of vampiric rage. “It took you less than a year to rip his fucking immortality out! I can’t _imagine_ what you’ll do with more time!”

Molly lunges up and grabs Raphael by the arm.

“None of that shit!” she snarls. “Not on these grounds. Raphael, I’m on your side here, but ripping this guy’s head off in my yard is not gonna fix your warlock so simmer the fuck down.” She tugs him back and he lets her, barely. “Christ, you’re all so emotional, aren’t you? A bunch of big strong men freaking the fuck out on my lawn.”

“This is a mistake,” Raphael says, tone black behind his teeth.

“Then it’s a mistake Magnus has to make, _cabrón_.” She mutters something in Spanish, too low and too quick for Alec to catch, but when she finishes, Raphael seems… resigned. “Okay,” she says, in English again. “Blondie stinks like black magic. So he stays out here. You wanna talk to Bane, you come alone and you leave your weapons.”

“That’s not necessary.” Alec says.

“This is how you get hexed. Weapons, cherub-boy, or I’m hexing you.”

“It’s okay,” Jace says. “I can watch your stuff, idiot. Just go get Magnus.”

“Jace…”

He rolls his eyes. “I won’t go crazy if you’re away for longer than five minutes, Alec. Just… go.”

Alec reluctantly disarms, handing seraph blade and stele to Jace. His bow he hadn’t brought on the assumption that looking for Magnus wouldn’t involve stand offs with vampires in Hell’s Kitchen parking lots. A foolish assumption really. He follows Molly into the community center, his head flickering faintly with his brother’s passing anxiety. But he can’t think of that. His pulse is pounding through him, his fingers shaky like he’s about to be in a fight. His mouth is dry.

The halls are full of corkboards crowded with children’s drawings. There are colorful plastic chairs stacked against the walls and every so often he sees protection circles carved into the walls or painted there in fun primary colors.

Molly’s got gold wrist bangles on. They jingle as she walks.

“You don’t know anything about witches do you?”

“Like you said, you’re human. So, no, I don’t know much about what you do,” says Alec. “Can I ask why the witches of Hell’s Kitchen are defending Magnus Bane?”

“Cuz we have a long standing agreement with Magnus about this. If he ever finds himself on tenuous grounds in the warlock community, he can come to us. Since Lorenzo Rey blackballed him, that means he’s on very tenuous ground.” Molly’s lips twitch. “Something about Magnus punching him out in an alley.”

Alec resists the urge to rub his temples.

“I totally forgot he did that. Shit.”

“Congratulations on your extremely controversial boyfriend. Anyway, witches don’t generally mind what warlocks say. Magnus is the exception.” Molly starts walking again. She gestures, rings glinting at her fingers. “Only High Warlock who ever gave coven leaders the time of day. He’s a cool guy.” She gestures. “Has good hair too. Ya’ know?”

“I know,” Alec murmurs, trying to ignore the ache that puts beneath his breastbone.

Molly stops in front of an office door that says ‘STAFF’ and knocks. Inside, Alec can hear voices murmuring the faint sound of a low chuckle, muffled by the door but masculine and it’s embarrassing how powerfully that puts a hopeful surge in Alec’s heart. There’s a click of the door unlocking and Molly opens it. When she does, Alec very clearly hears Magnus saying, “—I know it’s an aggressive proposal but I promise you I can take it. I’ve withstood much worse.”

It’s the first time he’s heard his voice in…

Alec’s throat kind of seizes up.

Molly sticks her head in the door, apologetic. “Mai? Julie? Sorry, sis. There’s an Alec Lightwood here looking for Magnus. You inna place to stop for a moment?”

There’s a silence, likely filled by three witches looking to Magnus for a ‘yea’ or ‘nay’. It’s a long silence. Uncomfortably long. Torturously, horribly long. Long enough for entire star-systems to be birthed burning and wink out of existence in the internal universe of Alec Lightwood’s brain.

Then, “It’s alright,” Magnus says.

His voice is very quiet though.

Molly steps back and opens the door for him. At her feet, a black cat winds its way over her high tops, growling at him as he moves to enter the room. He barely notices. His heart’s racing like he’s been sprinting to get here, his skin cold with adrenaline. Alec steps inside the room.

The interior is almost entirely dominated by a large oak table. The air is thick with the smell of burning herbs. Anti-evil wards and hex-bags hang by the hundreds from the ceiling, making the room a chaotic mobile. Windows are papered over with spell-tape and the walls are all black boards covered in alchemic circles. Candles burn in pie-tins filled with water.

And there, sitting cross-legged in a chair at this table, is Magnus.

Just… sitting there. Like he hasn’t been missing for the past week.

There two witches seated at the same table, each at a point drawn into a spell circle written in the wood. A severe Vietnamese woman in a blue sweater is glaring at him. She has a large raven sitting on her shoulder. The other witch, Molly’s sister by her features, has the same complex locks as Molly, but gone silver with age. She is missing her left eye. She is likewise looking Alec like he shouldn’t be here.

Magnus looks… well, honestly, he looks a little tense. His eyes are unglamored, cat-eye yellow in the darkness and faintly glowing. He’s dressed in black jeans, boots, and a dark pull over, hands lightly fisted on his knees. Alec notices there are… a lot of bracelets and tooled leather straps around his wrists. The lobe and shell of his ear are studded in silver and stones. There’s a series of new bars through his right brow and a mess of cords and beads looped around his neck.

It looks less like a style choice, Alec realizes, more… purposeful.

“Magnus?” Alec says, forgetting whatever else he was going to say.

Magnus pushes back from the table and stands up.

“Alec,” he starts, but he doesn’t get any farther because Alec is across the room and Magnus promptly straight-jacketed into frantic embrace. He kind of grunts in surprise… or because Alec is crushing the air out of his lungs. They’ve never really cleared up precisely how strong Magnus’ demonic blood actually makes him compared to a shadowhunter, but not strong enough to resist a panicked nephilim bearhug, apparently.

“Why the fuck didn’t you answer?” Alec rasps in his ear. He’s horrified to realize his eyes are stinging. He curls his arm around the back of Magnus’ neck, sliding one hand up into the back of his hair. He smells like incense and burnt plants and faintly like cologne and it makes Alec’s lungs kind of stop functioning. “You scared the shit out of me. Don’t do that to me.”

Magnus says nothing for a moment, then kind of reaches up, fitting his hands to Alec’s biceps so he can gently lean back and look Alec in the eyes.

“Alec,” Magnus says, but like he’s been practicing saying it. Like it’s unfamiliar. “I thought I said to give me time.”

It’s a very simple, reasonable, sentence. It also has the side-effect of stopping some crucial mechanism in the structures of Alec Lightwood’s heart and he feels his ribs go tight, so tight the barely healed wound in his chest seems to flare up. He wonders, stupidly, if he’s bleeding though his shirt.

“You weren’t answering your phone,” Alec says quietly, feeling all at once horrified and completely fucking stupid.

Magnus tilts his head. “I answered a few times,” he points out, still so goddamn reasonable. “To show you I was okay. Then, yes, I stopped answering. I’m sorry if that scared you but…” He trails off, letting Alec fill in the terrible blanks but he doesn’t do it, just stands there like a tall, stupid statue staring at Magnus like he’s speaking another language entirely because he does not fucking understand.

He does. But there’s a stronger part of his brain refusing to do it.

“Young man,” says the Vietnamese woman, frowning at him. “We are quite preoccupied. What is your business here?”

Alec suddenly has no idea.

Because it hadn’t occurred to him that Magnus would be staring at him like this, kind of blank-faced and professional. Because for Alec, it’s been just forty-eight hours since he was lying on the ground in an alley, choking on his own blood. Just forty-eight hours since Magnus was kneeling over him, panicked, and crushing his hand between his. For Magnus, it’s been a month. Alec has no idea what he’s allowed to do right now.

Magnus just stares at him.

Alec feels his fucking insides turning to dust.

“Do you want him here?” Mai demands after a long enough pause that it’s become clear Alec has gravely misjudged his welcome and should be, rightly, consigned to an appropriate limbo. The hallway outside would do.

But before Alec can back out the door, Magnus says, calmly, “Yes. I want him here.”

Alec takes the breath he wasn’t aware he was holding.

“Are you sure?” Julie asks gently.

“Yes,” Magnus says, but he turns away as he says it and goes to sit back down at the table. “It’s okay. I don’t mind. I think he can handle it.”

“Then he best not interfere,” Mai says, still glaring at Alec. She looks back to Magnus only after impressing upon Alec her intent to do him harm if he should fail to control himself. “Are you ready?”

“As ever,” Magnus mutters, one brow arching with a visible reluctance. He turns his attention back to the circle before him and puts both of his hands out, palm up, over a pewter bowl filled with small stones and shredded flowers. “Let’s just get the hard part over with.”

“This is not witchcraft we recommend,” says Mai, cutting in. Her expression is closed, lips thin with disapproval. “This is not good magic. If you were anything other than what you are, I would refuse it. So much more violent than magic should ever be.”

“I’m sorry,” Magnus says. “I’m afraid there’s not much about me that isn’t… violent.” He drops his gaze momentarily, then looks back. “I promise this is the last favor I’ll ever ask of you.

“Don’t say that,” Mai snaps, irritated. “You’re not a warlock anymore. You can’t act on your own. Don’t tell me you’re not going to ask for help; that defeats the entire purpose.”

“I know, Mai.”

“I know you know. You always know, but you do stupid things anyway because you’re a warlock and warlocks never wait for anything. They just do what they want because they can.”

“Mai, my god, can you give the old man a break?” says Julie Bennett, laughing.

“So I am a warlock or I’m not?” says Magnus somewhat dryly.

“You are worse,” Mai scolds. “You are half and half. Warlock in your head, but not in your hands. Good way to die.” The raven on Mai’s shoulder rasps, nibbling on a bit of her hair. “Telling you now so you remember. Don’t be an idiot. Ask for help. It is not too much to bear if borne together.” Her expression does not quite soften, but there’s a… wistfulness maybe. Like the old witch is seeing something different while looking at Magnus. “Let us protect you,” Mai says softly. “For once, Magnus Bane.”

And the warlock gives her a lopsided smile, one Alec has seen him give Madzie.

“Little Mai,” he says fondly, “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t intend to let you protect me. I knew from the day I met you, one day, I’d put my life in your hands and here it is. Why wouldn’t I let you protect me?”

Mai’s mouth pulls a little, a wetness in her eyes that she blinks away.

“Very well,” Mai says. “We’ll begin.”

And then both witches raise their hands and begin to speak. Alec doesn’t know what language because it seems like there are seven people speaking suddenly and the room shivers, the hanging wards spinning gently, the candle flames guttering. Magnus’ eyes flash, a spark of blue light suffusing then leaving their feline composition and as Alec watches, the narrow slits of each pupil blow wide. Then Magnus jerks, his face tensing with pain.

He grimaces, but he keeps his hands where they are. His fingers shake, twitching. Then all at once, a slit opens in the skin of his right palm and begins to bleed. Then another in his left. Then another, and another until dozens of small thin cuts are being sliced into the warlock’s hands as if by a myriad of invisible razor blades.

“ _Ah_!” Magnus bites down on the sound he makes, but he doesn’t lower his hands.

The cuts spread, whole arcane sentences carving themselves into Magnus’ skin until there is so much blood the actual symbols themselves vanish under the glistening run of crimson. Mai and Julie continue to spell cast. They keep on going until Magnus’ hands are pools of blood, dripping into a black stone bowl. Magnus’ hands shake the entire time as the ritual goes on.

Alec is a dichotomous thing – both unable to look away and wanting nothing more than to do that. He watches Magnus bleed and shake, helpless to do anything about it, until at long, long last the spell ends and the air in the room seems to thin. Then it’s quiet, nothing but the sound of Magnus breathing a little heavily. His palms are dripping blood.

“Ow,” Magnus says, trying to laugh.

“Shadowhunter,” snaps Mai. “Make yourself useful. Get the water from that table. Rinse.”

Alec jumps a little at being addressed but obeys. There’s a plastic pitcher of water and a wash rag on a squat desk by the door. He picks up both and, fighting not to hesitate, moves toward Magnus. This is almost easier, because Magnus is bleeding. There’s a wound and it needs fixing so he shuts off the part of him that wants to flips this fucking table and demand explanations… and just pours the water over the warlock’s palms until it runs clear over his fingers.

There are no cuts. Just angry red skin. Whatever magic was in the words, it’s inlaid invisibly now into the warlock’s hands. Magnus is still breathing hard and Alec has to resist the basest animal instinct to take Magnus’ fingers and kiss them individually. But he can’t do that because he has no idea what he’s allowed to do anymore so…

Alec kneels, pulling Magnus’ hands into his, carefully wiping the water from his skin.

“Tell me if this hurts.”

“It’s fine.”

“He’s lying,” Julie says, sighing as she pushes back from the table. “He’s just a tough old bastard and he doesn’t want to whimper in front of us grumpy old lesbians.” She grunts and stands up. “Okay, Bane. You’re officially under the Eye of Gaia. Bound now in blood, not just name. The coven stands behind you and with you. You have your totem?”

Magnus reaches up and touches an amulet on his neck, a small acorn on at thin iron chain and Alec knows, somehow, that this acorn is from one of the trees outside.

“I have it,” Magnus says quietly.

“Okay. Because we did this with blood, you’re going to be sick. Just ride it out, but the effects are otherwise immediate.”

Magnus nods, then grimaces and kind of doubles over in his seat. “Oh,” he says. “That’s… that’s pretty substantial.”

“Yeah,” Julie murmurs. “We warned you,”

“God,” Magnus pants. His hands are trembling, his shoulders knotted up, his whole body kind of pulling instinctively into itself, his elbows digging into his midriff, his hands drawn together against his chest. “I’ll be fine. Just…” He jerks, biting back an animal noise of agony, his whole face screwing up before he presses his forehead against his wrists. “ _Fuck_!”

Mai stands up, her hand over her mouth. “I can’t,” she whispers. “I can’t watch.”

She leaves the room in a fluster, the raven on her shoulder hopping and fluttering mid-air before landing on Julie’s shoulder instead. Julie remains, resolute.

“What’s happening?!” Alec demands, panic taking him now.

Magnus kind of grabs his shoulder suddenly, fingers clawing Alec’s bicep and he cries out like someone is digging a razor into his back. He does this until it seems to overcome him, then Magnus collapses forward, falling against Alec’s shoulder, his other hand closing tight in his shirt collar. Alec immediately hooks his arms around the warlock, pulling him sideways so he can guide him to the floor. He’s starting to moan through his teeth. He sounds delirious. His won’t let go of Alec’s shirt.

“Magnus? Fuck, Magnus can you hear me?”

“You familiar with the way witchcraft works?” asks Julie calmly.

“No!”

“Well, then they shouldn’t have sent you in here. Though, I’m not sure Raphael would be any better watching this.” She peers wearily at Magnus who is shaking, shivering like he’s freezing, gasping like someone is breaking bone. “Warlocks are born with magic living in them. Witches have to call on magic. Earn it. It’s not easy.”

Magnus kind of screams out, back arching for a second before he collapses into a loose fetal position, panting, fists knotted shaking against his stomach.

“Warlocks don’t ever have to worry about rebound or exchange for their magic. They just call upon it until the use if magic exhausts them. There’s no cost. They don’t need others to bear the burden. It makes them powerful, spoiled, and impatient.” Julie jerks her chin to Magnus. “This is a rebound, for using blood magic to hasten our protection rite.” She sounds tired and sad. “He said he could handle it.”

Alec’s calm is battlefield calm, instinctive and a lie. “Tell me if he’s dying.”

“No. But he might wish he were dead for a moment,”

Magnus is openly sobbing at this point, every line of muscle in his body wound so tight it’s agonizing just to look at. Sweat is beading on his forehead and neck. He jerks violently when Alec tries to stroke his hair, tries to touch him in any way to do fucking anything to sooth the invisible holocaust ripping through the warlock. Alec can’t do anything. Nothing. Nothing but sit here, again, while some magical toll is torn out of the man he loves.

“Stop,” Magnus is saying deliriously. “Stop, stop, stop…” Then he’s not saying it English. He’s saying it in Indonesian, hands raised as if against something standing over him. Alec’s translation rune plays it back in disorienting voice over. In stereo as Magnus begs, _“Please, don’t...”_

“Magnus!” Alec takes his hands between his. “Magnus, it’s okay.”

 _“I’m sorry!”_ Magnus doesn’t even register his touch. He’s staring wildly at something Alec cannot see, some figment from the past or a nightmare. His eyes are gold and fully dilated, so wide the ring of gold around the pupil is nearly gone. “ _I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it! I didn’t–!“_

“Can’t I do anything?!” Alec cries, looking to Julie.

“Perhaps,” she says. “You seem genuine. Good magic is born from so simple a seed.”

“Please. I’ll do anything. It’s my fault he’s here in the first place.”

“If you want to help him, try this and we will see if Gaia recognizes you. See that totem? The acorn? It’s linked to our coven, to every witch in Hell’s Kitchen who wishes him well. You are no witch, but you wish him well. Hold that and hold him. Ask for his well-being. That may help.”

“ _May_ help?”

“This is not warlock magic,” Julie says coolly. “We don’t rip our wishes from the earth like they do. It’s a favor that we ask.” She shrugs. “Try. Ask. It’s all you can do, Mr. Lightwood.”

Alec quickly rifles through the collection of cords and amulets around Magnus’ neck. There are a lot of them and—wait. His fingers brush a small square of red and gold and he freezes. Magnus is still wearing the omamori charm Alec bought him in Tokyo, there among the other totems of protection, as though it were good as a warlock or witch’s ward. Magnus is barely conscious at this point, just shivering, body seizing at random as Alec hooks an arm under his shoulders. Then he takes one of Magnus’ shaky hands in his, lacing their fingers so the acorn and the omamori charm are pressed between their palms.

“Magnus,” Alec says.

But he doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t pray. He doesn’t know how to wish with a purpose. He knows wishful thinking, wanting, not having. He doesn’t know how to do this. So, lost, aching at the heart, and sick to the soul, he just starts talking.

“I’m so fucking sorry.” His fist tightens, the acorn digging into his palm, the omamori soft in his fingers. “I keep… I keep putting you in danger. I don’t know how I can do that when all I want is you safe. God, I just… you seem indestructible to me even though I know it’s not true. I always forget with you I forget you’re not…” He laughs. “Maybe Cat was right. Maybe I’m cursed.”

Magnus is slack in his arms, head dropped back so the bare line of his throat is bared and Alec can see, faintly, there are scars now along his jugular. Faded like they’re ten years gone. Camille’s handiwork and Alec can’t understand why Magnus would let Cat leave the mark. A reminder maybe. Or a ward.

“Please be okay,” Alec whispers. “There’s a gang of vampires, a whole coven, a whole city that would want you to be okay. Please.” Alec’s eyes are running over at this point because Magnus is still shaking, jerking in the thrall of the rebound. Indifferent to Alec’s plea, to the effort exerted by himself, by Catarina, by Raphael, by Molly, Julie, Jace, Mai, and everyone. “I love you. There’s an army of people who fucking love you. Why isn’t that enough?”

But there’s not answer, of course. Magnus remains as he is, seized by agony in Alec’s arms and Alec doesn’t know what else to say. So he pulls their entwined fingers to his mouth, presses a kiss into the back of Magnus’ hand, against his knuckles and he murmurs:

“I want you safe.” And, “I’m fucking asking for it: Keep him –”

Something goes hot in his palm. Alec jerks, but doesn’t let go of Magnus, can’t let go. His fingers are electrified, muscles seized fast around Magnus’ fingers as a ball of molten gold burns in his palm like a ball bearing straight from a kiln. So hot, Alec feels the bones in his hand light up… then it’s gone. There’s nothing but an acorn and a piece of embroidered cotton between his fingers. Mundane as sneakers and coffee kiosks.

But Magnus opens his eyes.

He blinks at Alec, then looks at their interlocked hands. He uses his other elbow to sit up, looking disoriented.

“What happened?”

“You’re okay?” Alec blurts. “Magnus?”

“Yes, all of a sudden.” He gives Alec a puzzled look, so much stranger with cat’s eyes, luminous yellow in the dark. He touches his chest with his free hand, palm over his heart. He looks at Julie. “Was that them? Was that all of them all of…?” He looks at Alec, then Julie again. “All of them?”

Julie nods.

“I had no idea it felt like that.” Magnus scrubs his face with one hand, wiping his eyes. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I can’t… Jesus.” He gives up and just sits there, tears running down his face. “Why does it feel like this? What’s happening?”

“Just let it move over you. It’ll fade to background noise.”

Magnus sobs, covering his mouth. But it’s not a painful sound anymore. Just a baffled one. Overwhelmed, but not hurt.

“I didn’t know it felt like this,” he says again.

“How could you know?” Julie says, gentle as possible. “You’re a warlock. Your soul’s been full of noise for centuries. Never had the occasion to fill it with something else. Something quieter. So lonely it seems, to be an immortal.”

“Why are you letting me do this?” Magnus asks, pained suddenly. “I don’t deserve it. I can’t be part of this, Julie. I thought… I thought it was just a spell. It’s not just a spell.” He shakes his head. “I don’t deserve it.”

“Oh, love,” says Julie sadly, looking at Magnus with this look of deepest sympathy and affection. “You have no idea what you deserve.” She stands up from the table, gathering her things. “I hope you get your magic back, cat-eye grandfather, but until then… you better get up and get going. Our wards are sounding.” She jerks her chin toward the door. “I think there’s a fight out there for you.”

Magnus pulls his hand from Alec’s.

He’s staring at his palms like there’s something in them that Alec can’t see. He gets up from the floor, slowly, like he’s getting a feel for it and when he moves Alec isn’t sure, but he thinks he feels the building groan, like the concrete and steel is sighing around them. Magnus breathes in, he breathes out and somewhere three blocks over a dozen car alarms go off. Magnus rolls his shoulders and the street lights start to flicker in the parking lot outside.

He moves across the room to Juiie, gathers her head in his hands and kisses her forehead.

“Thank you,” he says, pressing his brow to hers.

Then he books out the door, slamming it out of the way so hard it rebounds off the wall and Alec can hear him sprinting down the long linoleum floor. Julie sighs and stares at Alec who’s still sitting dumbfounded on the floor.

“Well?” She throws an arm. “Go after him! That immortal doesn’t have the good sense God gave a goose. Go, go!”

Alec jolts to his feet and gives chase.

“Magnus!”

He can see the warlock running at the end of the hall. Christ, he’s fucking fast. The hallway is loud for reason and it takes Alec a minute to realize why: every locker down the hall is rattling, hundreds of combination locks spinning as Magnus runs past. The lights in the hallway are going crazy, flickering like the electricity is going out. Magnus hits the door at the end of the hall but all six of them blow open as it hit by invisible simultaneous battering rams. Alec activates his haste rune and he’s through the same doors in second and a half.

“Magnus! Wait!”

He gets no farther because two vampires snap into place at his elbows, yanking him back hard enough that Alec instinctively tenses, a flash of angelic strength jerking against the vamp on his left, but he stops. Because Magnus has stopped, is half-turned at the waist, looking at Alec and he looks so… strange. So hostile, cut in black and silver with the streetlights lining his shoulders and hair in blue. His eyes refract the light green behind the gold in his iris.

Behind him though, Alec stops fighting when he sees it: The city is pulsing.

Magnus breathes in slow and the street lights and the glow through apartment building windows seems to, literally, brighten. Like the wattage everywhere for the next five block goes up. He exhales and all the lights dim.

Like the city is breathing in time with him.

“Cool it,” Raphael hisses. He’s gripping Alec’s arm at the elbow. “Molly says he’s safe. Don’t interfere.”

Magnus turns back around and moves down the steps to the sidewalk and for a moment he just stands that, telling his head fall back. It’s almost midnight, the dead silent streets in the back part of the city and Alec can feel Magnus breathe because every time his ribs expand, the air pressure seems to intensify around them. He raises his hands and Alec feels the hair on his arms rise, smells ozone in the air, tastes static on his tongue. Then Magnus lowers his fists to his sides and just like that, all the tension slides out of the world and everything is normal again.

“Okay,” Magnus says quietly. “Okay.”

He steps off the side walk, beyond the bounds of the community center lawn.

“Venna?” he shouts into the empty intersection. “Venna if that’s you, I’m going to be very disappointed!”

There’s a silence. Then three streetlights pop and go out on the street kiddy-corner to where Magnus is standing. He glares at the new patch of darkness, then seems unsurprised when a piece of the darkness stands up, sheds its blackness and steps into the street. Alec knows them, the moment they step forward. A warlock in a long wool jacket and black riding boots, a fitted gray suit beneath. They’re inhumanly beautiful, eyes black, an enormous sweep of antlers grown up from the back of their skull, the structure of their nose more like a rabbit than a human.

Alec knows this warlock is, in fact, Venna Cold.

“You shouldn’t have banished me,” they say, almost apologetically.

“I can’t believe you’re the first one,” Magnus says. “I knew someone would try me, but I hoped it wouldn’t be you.”

Venna shakes their lovely head and when they smile, their teeth are all fangs.

“Then you’re a sentimental idiot.”

Shadows snake from the sidewalks, cutting across the lit concrete of the intersection and gathering under Venna’s boots. All the shadows beyond the Community Center lawn are getting darker, the air poisoning, rotting. Alec and Jace cover their nose and mouth at the stench and Raphael’s vampires snarl, baring fang and backing up from the stink of black magic. Blackness pools in the gutters at the edge of the sidewalk, thin tendrils of blackness testing the edges of the lawn and instantly dissolving against whatever witchcraft guard the place.

But Magnus is beyond that barrier, standing in a circle of streetlight and nothing else.

“Molly?” Alec says, looking to the witch. “Can he handle this?”

She’s standing in the grass, one hand against the trunk of the oak tree. Her familiar is perched on her shoulder, eyes glowing green in the dark.

“It’s clean magic against black magic,” she says. “Trust. Black magic loses when it counts.”

“I don’t like this!” Jace shouts back to Alec. He’s standing at the very edge of the protective grass barrier, seraph blade burning like starlight in his fist. The shadows recoil from the light it casts, or maybe it’s not the blade, because Jace is lit up from the inside. His eyes are glowing amber when he looks to Alec. “What are we doing here? Are we really leaving him alone?”

“Trust him,” Raphael says, gripping Alec’s arm tighter.

In the street, Magnus is pushing his sleeves up, muttering, “Fine, be that way.” He raises his voice. “Duel then? Usual rules?”

“Won’t be a duel, Bane. Just me ripping you up.”

“You’re welcome to try. But when this is done, I’m taking you to Lorenzo Rey and he’s going to bury you in the Spiral Labyrinth. He’s not like me. He won’t go easy on you.”

“I don’t need your fucking pity, Bane. I never did.” Venna raises their hands and a hell-red glow sparks bloody at their fingers, wreathed in chains of blackness that eat every molecule of light in the air around them. There are black ribbons knotted in their antlers and when they casts, there’s a rattle of broken bells, jangling hollow. “I’m going to take your eyes. Then everyone will know who put you down.”

“Venna,” Magnus says, raising his hands. “Please. It doesn’t have to be you.”

“What doesn’t?”

“I’m going to make an example someone. It doesn’t have to be you.”

“Fuck you,” Venna says.

Then they step forward, slamming their boot to the ground and the shadows rip loose from the concrete like ribbons yanked taut on a string. They take shape as a nest of snakes, writhing, before they tear across the ground toward Magnus, a screaming wave of black magic the likes of which Alec has never seen before. He can’t help it. Alec starts to run forward, but Raphael grabs him, yanking him back and the last Alec sees of Magnus is the last moment when he grabs the totem at his neck – the acorn and the omamori – and the black breaks over him like a wave in the ocean.

“Magnus!” Alec wrenches against Raphael’s hold but the vampire hold him back. “Let go of me!”

“No!” Raphael snarls. “I’m not gonna let you get fucked up and make it all for nothing. Just wait.”

“Hey!” Jace is yelling. “Hey, Hot Topic! Hey!” He points at Venna, pacing the edge of the protective barrier like an angry dog might pace a fence. “HEY! I’m talking to you, Rudolph! Hey! You really a badass? Attacking warlocks with no magic? Huh? Fuck you!”

Venna glances in Jace’s direction, then smiles.

“When I done with Bane, you’re welcome to come out here, angel.” They jerk their hand up and the shadows in the gutters heave up and break against the barrier where Jace is standing, writhing at the invisible ward wall, pawing blindly like fingers on glass. Venna laughs. “I’ll make you mine if you want. If that’s what you _need_. I heard Lilith had you first.” Venna tosses a careless hand. “I don’t mind sloppy seconds.”

Jace jerks, his spine going rigid, but before he or Alec can react to that, Venna’s laugh rather suddenly turns into a scream and blood erupts from their mouth. They stare, stunned, at the rotten blackish red on their bespoke suit. Then they double over and vomit up another wave of red. They gag, suck air, vomit again. Every bit of blood that comes up is writhing somehow and it takes Alec a moment, but he realizes what he’s seeing: Venna is vomiting up shadows just like the ones in their curse.

“What… the fuck?” Venna retches again, falling to their knees and panting, drooling blood and shadow. “What the fuck?!”

“I warned you,” a muffled voice says.

In the middle of the intersection, a patch of shadow budges, standing up and straining – a stretch of blackness in the shape of a man before the sheet splits apart, ripping because Magnus rips it apart like a sheet of plastic wrap off his shoulders. That breaks it. Every bit of the black, oily magic fractures, then liquifies and starts to dissolve. Magnus stands up, brushing the dusty residue of the curse from his shoulders and hair. He sneezes, grimaces and moves toward Venna, eventually coming to a crouch in front of the other warlock.

"Whatever you throw at me," he says, "it just comes back on you. Threefold."

He’s completely untouched. The street lights are thrumming though, in a dull two-two beat, like a pulse. Alec knows without knowing that it’s Magnus’ heartbeat it’s following.

“No.” Venna hisses, slamming a fist on the ground. “No, no! You have no magic! You have nothing! You’re empty! You’re a fucking mortal!”

Magnus looks kind of sad. “We’re in Hell’s Kitchen, Venna. What kind of magic do you think I’m calling on?”

Venna spits at him, lunges at him and slaps him, leaving a bright red swipe of blood on his face. Magnus doesn’t react. Just settles back on his haunches, arms draped over his knees, face bare of glamore so the two warlocks face each other as they are: marks naked under the buzzing streetlights.

“Witchcraft?” Venna laughs. Then they choke, vomit up blood again, screaming in frustration and pain. “YOU BEAT ME WITH WISHES AND HAPPY THOUGHTS, YOU BASTARD!? YOU PIECE OF SHIT!” They slap him again and Magnus lets the blow fall, weaker now. “Fuck you. Fuck you. Why do you always win? How do you always win?”

“A demon ripped my magic out of me,” says Magnus. “There isn’t a minute of every day that doesn’t hurt. Every breath hurts. What on earth about that is a victory to you?”

“I’m glad you lost your magic,” Venna hisses. “I’m glad you’re hurt! I hope you die in agony!”

“I’m going to call Lorenzo,” Magnus says calmly. “People are going to know I’m protected because of you. So… thank you. And thank you for… not ripping my eyes out I guess.”

“I hate you. I hate you so much you sanctimonious fuck. Why can’t you just lose?”’

Magnus stands up and turns, walking away from Venna, wiping blood from his face with the back of his hand. The black magic is evaporating like dirty water from the streets and by the time he reaches the Community Center lawn, the last of Venna’s curse is all but gone, eaten away by whatever power came to Magnus’ defense. He looks tired and Jace moves quickly to grab his arm and give him a shoulder to brace against.

“Thank you, Jace.” He gives him an exhausted smile. “You know, I heard you yelling. I appreciate the distraction.”

“Least I could do,” Jace mutters, helping the warlock mount the steps back toward the building. He pulls Magnus’ arm over the back of his neck, taking his weight almost entirely. “That’s some protection charm. Might even give Simon a run for his money, uh, if we can find him.”

Magnus says nothing then, “I’m sorry, Jace. This wasn’t your fault, you know.” And when Jace looks surprised he says, “I think I gave the impression it was last time we saw each other. That wasn’t fair.”

“Don’t apologize to me, Magnus. I’m sick of apologies, honestly.”

“Fine. You suck.”

Jace snorts. “Thanks.” He jerks his chin. “Alec? Raphael? This is yours I think?”

“Really?” Raphael says, deadpan, as Magnus extracts himself from Jace. “You lose your magic so your solution is pick a fight with the first murderer who comes after you as some kind of power play? Why can’t you be normal? Why are you like this?” Raphael makes this weird vampire noise of irritation. “Are you gonna be okay or what?”

“I’ll be fine,” Magnus says, patting Raphael on the shoulder. “Can you make sure Venna doesn’t run?”

“I’ll do you one better,” he says. “I can drag their sorry ass straight to Lorenzo. Using black magic against a shadowhunter? That’s breaking the Accords.” He glances at Jace. “Right, Herondale? That warlock threatened you. I heard it. That’s grounds for Idris unless the warlocks deal with it immediately.”

“Oh yeah,” Jace says, scratching his nose. “For sure. I feel threatened. We’ll leave out the fact I’m, uh, technically on leave.”

“Details.”

The two of them descend the steps, heading toward the sidewalk and then, finally, it’s just Magnus standing in front of Alec, looking tired but at ease for a moment. Alec reaches up one hand, meaning to touch Magnus’ cheek by reflex before remembering. He hesitates, his fingers hovering just a breath from his skin, suddenly terribly uncertain if this is just another thing he’s not allowed to do right now.

Then Magnus just kind of… tips forward and drops his forehead against Alec’s shoulder.

“God. I’m so tired,” he says, sounding rawer than Alec was expecting. “I’m exhausted, Alexander. Please take me home. I’m sorry I didn’t call you back I just… I was _tired_.”

“I… I don’t... What? Don’t apologize.” Alec fits his hands to the back of Magnus’ head and the place between his shoulder blades, feels Magnus kind of relax against him, leaning on him. “It’s not your job to baby sit my feelings, Magnus. You had to set all this up by yourself while Camille was fucking hunting you? Of course, you didn’t have time to keep me in the loop. I’m sorry I forced the issue.” He stands there for a moment just… enjoying this moment before adding, “Look, you can hate me, if you want to. I understand if you do, but I’m going to ask you to let me help. Okay? I owe you so much Magnus. I don’t know how to –”

Magnus fits his hands to Alec’s hips and leans back so he can look Alec in the eyes.

“I don’t hate you,” he cuts in. Then, when Alec’s baffled expression tells the tale of his strange trajectory here, Magnus reaches up and cups his jaw and it’s terrifying how that one gesture splits Alec down the middle. “I don’t hate you, Alexander. I hate that I couldn’t see another way out of it. I hate that Clary…” His mouth works, visibly pained. “I hate that despite everything I did, the Downworld is in pieces and people I love are gone or gravely wounded. I gave up all my magic and all we did was survive and I hate _that_.”

Magnus lets his hands slide to Alec’s jacket collar, gripping it.

“I hate that I gave up so much and gained so little.”

He closes his eyes, bowing his head.

“A-and it _hurts_ , Alexander. It hurts all the time and I didn’t know losing my magic was going to hurt like this.” His fists tighten in Alec’s lapels. “It hurts and I’m mortal. I don’t know _how_ to be mortal and sometimes I just… I can’t even move because it hurts and I’m scared and I wanted to have done something to fix myself before I saw you again because—” He struggles with it. “Because otherwise I _was_ going to hate you. I was going to hate you so much it would destroy me and I just couldn’t…”

He drops his forehead against Alec’s chest again.

“It’s not your fault,” he whispers, like he’s convincing himself. “I didn’t just do it just because it would save you…” He laughs, a kind of fractured sound. “But goddammit, when I’m low I wish you’d fucking stopped me.”

Alec immediately wraps Magnus in his arms, ducking his head against Magnus’ neck and pressing his mouth against his skin and he just holds him, so tight he can feel Magnus’ heart beating against his ribs. Alec would do anything, anything, to just take it back. To just undo the damage that’s been done to Magnus Bane. He’d give up anything, his draw hand, his eyes, his tongue torn from his mouth. Any toll in his own flesh to give, but he can’t so he just hugs the warlock as tightly as he can bear.

“I’m so sorry, Magnus.” Alec’s throat aches as he says it. “I’m so fucking sorry. For all of it. For not stopping you. For always asking you to help. For not being there with you afterward. Catarina was right I… I don’t think straight through the parabatai bond and I treat people I love like they’re all shadowhunters and you’re not. You’re not.” He swallows, hard. “I should have never lost track of that and I’m sorry for that too.”

“I knew what I was getting into,” Magnus says.

“Being with me doesn’t obligate you to fight my battles, Magnus.”

“I want to fight them,” Magnus whispers. “Don’t treat me like I’m helpless.”

“I know you’re not.”

“Don’t treat me like I’m less than I was.”

“You’re not,” Alec rasps. “God, Magnus, you could never be less because you got hurt defending us. You’re the best person I know. There’s no one in the world like you. I love you. I love you so much. I love you with or without magic. I love you immortal or mortal, blind or scarred or missing your goddamn limbs. I don’t care. Do you understand me? I love you forever no matter what you are as long as it’s you.”

Magnus laughs, a raw, aching sound.

“In sickness and in health?” he mumbles, so tired he doesn’t really seem to know what he’s saying.

“Yes,” Alec whispers. “Yes, exactly.”

But Magnus is already slipping into unconsciousness, slumping forward against Alec’s chest. So, Alec quickly pulls Magnus’ arm around his neck, then just bends down and hooks his arms under the bend of Magnus’ knees and picks him up. He carries Magnus down the steps to the street. He has some notion that he’s going to drive him back to Brooklyn, back to his loft, back home, but he can’t really think straight. Magnus’ head rests against shoulder, his left arm hanging loose, a dozen protective charms clinking on his wrist.

Jace is jogging toward him. Alec focuses on that.

“Raphael is calling in Lorenzo.” Jace still has his seraph blade out. He dismisses it with a flash and a wrist flick. “We gotta get Magnus outta here. You got the car keys?”

“You’re not driving,” Alec manages to growl.

“I’m not that bad,” Jace protests, chasing Alec toward the end of the block.

“Just get the door. I’ll put him in the back.”

“Is he okay, Alec?” Jace’s worry is written along the inside of Alec’s skull. “Is he gonna be okay?”

“He’s Magnus Bane,” Alec says. “He’ll be okay no matter what we do. Doesn’t mean he’s gonna do it alone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I genuinely am fueled by all the comments. I was gonna let this be a one-shot but yall changed my mind. Thank you!


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